‘Contempt of court’: K-P, Balochistan operators left out of Hajj quota

Ignored HGOs says federal government’s decision is in violation of SC verdict

PESHAWAR: Not even a single Hajj Group Organiser (HGO) from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan is among the recipients of the newly-issued Hajj quota – a move that comes in sheer violation of the Supreme Court orders by the Federal Ministry for Religious Affairs.

The top court had on June 6 ordered the ministry to allocate 40 per cent of the Hajj quota to the 2,033 new HGOs – also called private tour operators – at the earliest. However, it could only shortlist 29 HGOs in such a short period.

Furthermore, the quota of already operating 742 HGOs was slashed by 2 per cent to accommodate the shortlisted HGOs.

“The federal government has violated the Supreme Court’s verdict” by not distributing the quota among all the non-quota groups, said K-P General Secretary of non-quota Hajj Group Organisers Association (HGOA) Ghazanfar Ali while talking to The Express Tribune.



“Slashing the allocation of the quota-holder operators by 2 per cent is also in violation of the court’s verdict as the court had directed the government to equally distribute it [quota] among all the new operators,” he said, adding that the government had allocated quota ranging from 50 to 300 pilgrims to the HGOs.

With the government failing to provide quota to none of the petitioners, the aggrieved operators would file a contempt of court petition against the government immediately after Eidul Fitr, besides holding a protest demonstration in Islamabad, he added.

Upon the government move of shortlisting 29 from 2,033 HGOs on the basis of marks ranging from 78 to 88 out of 100, he said, “The court had not directed the federal government to distribute the quota on the basis of marks, but had asked them to allot it among the petitioners.”

The HGOs of K-P have expressed serious concerns over ignoring the province in Hajj quota allocation despite the fact that the court had ordered its distribution on merit.



The reservations over distribution of quotas for the already-registered companies and ignoring the newly-registered ones were challenged in the Islamabad High Court and later on in the Supreme Court.

Despite being registered in 2005 and 2006, some of the companies had not been distributed Hajj quota.

The list of new HGOs, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, shows that 18 operators have been shortlisted from Karachi, three from Rawalpindi, five from Lahore, and one each from Gujranwala, Bahawalpur and Islamabad.

Private operators have to cater to a total of 71,684 pilgrims, of which 1,450 were to be allocated among 29 HGOs.



About the allocations to non-quota holders, a letter from the Secretary to the Prime Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad was issued on June 22, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, directing the religious affairs ministry to finalise the distribution process within the next 24 hours.

Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Yousaf could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts.