SC asks PIA to take its responsibility

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday directed the PIA to take action on its 10-year audit report and observed that it’s time for the PIA to take its own responsibility.

Justice Azmat Saeed asked the PIA counsel Naeem Bukhari to submit a plea against the SC's order on regularisation of employees and said that it was not possible that a court would issue two contradictory orders.

The SC ordered the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to submit a petition seeking withdrawal of another SC decision on regularisation of contract employees in Karachi. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Azmat Saeed, was hearing multiple petitions regarding the national flag carrier.

PIA counsel Naeem Bukhari during the hearing sought permission for recruitment in the airline. On March 31, 2018, the apex court placed a ban on new recruitment in the airline. The counsel argued that the SC’s Karachi Registry had ordered the PIA administration to regularise all the airline’s contract employees in Karachi. He contended that the SC’s earlier order on ban on recruitment refrained the airline from executing its order to regularise the employees.

Justice Ijazul Ahsan remarked that the PIA had already inducted much more employees than it required. Justice Saeed asked why the PIA counsel didn’t inform the bench in Karachi about SC’s earlier order regarding the ban on fresh employees. Advocate Bukhari told that the court that the bench was hearing the case in Karachi and he was not representing the PIA in that case.