Defying court orders: CAA chief given contempt notice

The officials had been stopped from forcing the restaurant operator to vacate the premises.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued notice to the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) director-general, the airport manager of Jinnah International Airport and the aviation authority’s senior manager (commercial) to explain why they have violated the court’s stay order against the ejection of a restaurant operator from the airport.

Headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, the bench passed the order after he was informed that the aviation authorities had deliberately attempted to eject the restaurant operator from Jinnah International Airport even after the court had ordered them not to do so.

Shabbir Ahmed, the operator of the restaurant, had filed an application to seek contempt proceedings against the CAA director-general Air Marshal (retd) Muhammad Yousuf, airport manager Muhammad Afsar Malik and CAA senior manager (commercial) Ali June Agha.

The applicant submitted that he had entered into an agreement with the CAA in December 2012, to run a restaurant on the premises of the airport for a period of three years. The agreement is valid till 2015 but the CAA had cancelled it illegally on March 27, 2014, and forced him to vacate the restaurant, he alleged.

The cancelation is illegal as no authority can do so without complying with the terms and conditions of the agreement, argued the applicant. He recalled that on June 6, 2014, a division bench of the SHC had ordered the authorities to maintain status quo with regard to vacating the restaurant. He was, however, still being forced by CAA officials to vacate it.

He stated that the CAA officials had issued him a letter, asking to vacate the site within seven days, which was in violation of the court’s order. The applicant pleaded the court initiate contempt proceedings against the respondents for willfully and deliberately violating the court’s order.

After hearing arguments, the bench issued notices to the respondents to file their comments by the next date of hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2014.