On merit: LHC sets aside Hajj quota allocation

Lawyers said merit had been overlooked in allocating the <br /> Hajj quota.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday set aside the quota allocation of 15,000 Hajj pilgrims among private tour operators and ordered the Ministry of Religious Affairs to equally allocate the quota among old tour operators and those who have been recently registered.

Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan of the Lahore High Court issued the order on a number of petitions that had been filed by newly registered operators who had challenged the Hajj Policy 2014 and the alleged unfair allocation of quota among private tour operators.

The petitioners’ counsel said that the government had not constituted a committee on the Hajj Policy 2014 as had been directed by the Supreme Court. He said that the details of the policy had not been uploaded on the ministry’s website.

The lawyers said merit was overlooked in the allocation of the quota.

He said the majority of operators, who were given the quota, were defaulters and had been blacklisted.

The counsel prayed to the court to set aside the impugned allocation.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2014.