PESHAWAR - Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday allowed Ministry of Commerce and All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) to prepare reply on a writ petition filed by textile mills challenging the forced and monopolistic amalgamation of APTMA KP Zone with APTMA Punjab Zone as one Northern Zone
A two-member bench of the PHC comprising justice Nisar Hussain Khan and Mussarat Hilali asked the representative of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, APTMA, Regulator of Trade Organisation, Deputy Director Trade Organisation to reply on a writ petition filed by 10 leading textile mills challenging amalgamation of APTMA KP Zone with APTMA Punjab Zone as one Northern Zone.
The stay was issued on a writ petition filed by Chairman APTMA KP Zone, Raza Kuli Khan Khattak and other members of the association.
Athar Minallah, the learned counsel for the petitioners, contented that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone pertaining to a well defined and constitutionally recognised area, has its own dynamics, problems, solutions and requirements which are very different from other Zones, regions and areas requiring separate and distinct representation in any Federal/ ‘All Pakistan’ association or body.
By merging the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa zone into “Northern Zone” the voice and representation of the province has effectively and practically been killed.
Punjab being a big province itself needed to be divided into zones let alone merging other provinces into one zone with it. The creation of Northern Zone defeats the purposes of the Act: in that instead of providing appropriate representation to the members of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone it takes away the already existing representation available earlier. The re-zoning has been done in the most discriminatory manner as only the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa zone has been eliminated.
Under the existing Memorandum & Articles of APTMA, the office of chairman of the association shall rotate between the zones in the proportion of 3:2:1 (3 Punjab Zone, 2 Sindh Balochistan Zone & 1 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone) formula respectively but under the proposed Memorandum and Articles of APTMA, KP zone has been merged with Punjab Zone into one Northern Zone purportedly under the Trade Organisation Rules 2013. This effectively would mean the representative zone of KPK would have been silenced and identity of KPK zone would have been lost.
The bench after hearing the arguments, granted a status quo order and issued Notices to Govt of Pakistan through Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, APTMA through its Chairman, Regulator of Trade Organisation & Deputy Director Trade Organisation and therefore stayed the Extra Ordinary General Body Meeting of APTMA members scheduled on March 13, 2014 (Thursday) with the agenda point of changing the Memorandum & Articles of APTMA.
While commenting on the court proceedings Central Vice Chairman APTMA Afan Aziz said that all the members of APTMA KPK Zone have had strong reservations on the manner and style through which the change in articles issue is being taken up by central APTMA and that this issue of depriving the identity of smaller province like KPK has been raised at various central committee meetings which has not been registered by the members of the bigger province.