PHC directs officials to pay artistes or face action

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday directed the secretary and director general of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate of Culture to pay a monthly stipend to the artistes within a month or else contempt of court proceedings would be initiated against them in the next hearing.

A division bench comprising Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim summoned the two top officials of the Directorate of Culture to the court. They were directed to pay the stipend within a month or else face the contempt of court proceedings. The court directed them to pay the stipend or give replies to the show-cause notice in the contempt of court case on the next hearing.

The bench passed the order in contempt of court petition filed by the artistes of the province, including Zulfiqar Qureshi, Ahmed Sajjad, Ishrat Abbas, Zar Mohammad, Aman Khan, Jehangir Adil and Saeeda. They had sought implementation of the court decision wherein the government was directed to pay the monthly stipend which is Rs30,000 to the artistes without further delay.

During the hearing, Hidayatullah Afridi, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the previous provincial government had approved endowment fund for the artistes and started paying Rs30,000 monthly stipend to each of the 500 registered artistes including actors, singers, composers, poets, film, drama writers and directors.

He pointed out that the government then started payment of the monthly stipend, but the stipend was stopped by the provincial government after two months subsequent to the court s stay order in a writ petition by some self-styled artistes.