Airports’ sell-off: IHC orders CAA to submit ‘confidential’ papers by 13th

CAA counsel says privatisation of three major airports to leave thousands jobless

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday ordered the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to submit by June 13 all documents, including the ‘confidential’ ones, regarding the process of privatisation of three international airports in the country.

Justice Aamer Farooq of the IHC issued the directives over a petition challenging the privatisation of the New Islamabad International Airport, the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore and Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.

The CAA had filed a written reply, telling the court that they had brought confidential documents for ‘perusal’ of the court, but submitting them would be tantamount to ‘making them public’.



To this, Justice Farooq said submitting the ‘relevant documents’ was necessary as the court would decide the matter only after going through the documents and might quote relevant paragraphs in the final order.

Previously, the court had issued notices to aviation secretary, aviation division secretary, CAA DG, adviser to the prime minister on aviation and chairman Privatisation Commission of Pakistan after the collective bargaining agent and some other CAA employees had challenged the privatisation process.

The petitioners, through their counsel Hafiz Arfat Ahmad, approached the court after the CAA had, on February 7, invited applications from international companies for the privatisation of the three international airports.



According to the ‘impugned’ advertisement, the counsel said, the companies desirous of participating in the process would be responsible for operation, management development works and some other functions.

He added that the company would control airport operations and management, administration and maintenance of airport buildings, allied infrastructure, equipment, systems and other facilities, ground-handling services and future expansions of airport infrastructure including runways, taxiways, car parking etc.

According to the counsel, the unexpected news concerning privatisation of the three major airports where a major part of the workforce of CAA is deployed created a serious sense of insecurity among thousands of its employees.

All of them were surprised as to why major components of a profit-yielding organisation of the government were being privatised, he said, adding that the CAA’s financial performance report of 2015-2016 reflects that it earned more than Rs50 billion.



He argued that Section 6 of the CAA Ordinance unambiguously states that “CAA shall have control over all civil airports of the country”.

He added that with the legislative provision itself contemplating that the control of civil airports should remain with the CAA then it could not have issued the ‘impugned’ advertisement seeking applications from companies.

The CAA, with the connivance of other respondents, had decided to accommodate some influential group, he alleged, adding that the decision to privatise the three airports had not been taken by the CAA management, rather the management had been directed to initiate such a process.

“The decision to ‘accommodate’ someone has been taken at some other level and the CAA without any justification is blindly executing the unlawful direction,” he stated.



The counsel further argued that “the sovereign rights on air can only be ensured when the administrative and operational control of the airports is retained by the state”, but entrusting the same to a private corporate entity would seriously jeopardise things.

He argued that aviation “is a highly sensitive activity which is directly linked to the safety and security of Pakistan”. Through the impugned advertisement, he added, the CAA had quite surprisingly decided to entrust its core function to a private entity.

Considering the importance and sensitivity of aviation, specifically in times of war, the proposed entrustment of control of the three major airports of the country to a private entity was definitely going to give a serious blow to the security of Pakistan, he said.

The consequence of privatisation of the airports would be that thousands of CAA employees would be rendered surplus, finally leading to the end of their jobs, he said. “CAA has created a serious sense of insecurity among its employees.”



Besides making a sizeable contribution to the public exchequer, the CAA is a source of livelihood for more than 10,000 employees, he said, and prayed to the court to declare illegal the advertisement and actions taken pursuant to it.