ISLAMABAD, Jan 15: The Supreme Court on Tuesday summoned the top management of Pakistan International Airlines to answer contempt of court charge for grounding two of its flight crew despite its clear directive to maintain status quo.

On December 6, the apex court had ordered PIA not to remove its female cabin crew pending final adjudication of an appeal and submit a complete suitability assessment report about fixing retirement age of female cabin crew.

In a chamber hearing, Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi took a serious view when Advocate Sheikh Riazul Haq, representing the airhostesses, deplored that two senior crewmembers, Ms Nahid Azhar and male purser Syed Asad, had been grounded in violation of an order of the court.

“Let the general manager human resource, Karachi, appear in person before the court and explain as to why action under the contempt of the court should not be initiated against him,” Sheikh Riaz quoted Justice Abbasi as saying.

The next hearing is on February 4. Chaudhry Arshad, representing PIA, sought more time to submit the suitability report on female cabin crew.

Despite repeated directions to submit the report by October 31 and then by December 31, the corporation has failed to do so.

Earlier the apex court had restrained PIA from fixing retirement age of airhostesses at 35 till the disposal of its appeal against a judgment of the Sindh High Court.

Some female cabin crew had also approached now deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry complaining against discriminatory attitude of the PIA administration which had asked them to go on forced leave on ‘biased and absolutely meaningless reasons’ like dull and poor appearance, scars on face, big gap in front teeth and age factor affecting looks.

In a three-page application, which was signed by six female cabin crew, they requested the chief justice to direct the airline to withdraw insulting remarks as well as letters of forced retirement and call them to join their duty.

They claimed that they had been appointed through a proper procedure and factors like scars on face or gap in teeth were never pointed out at the time of their selection. Besides, they were not in show business requiring them to work as models; rather their job prerequisite was fitness, skills and training.

The female staff made sacrifices, being away from their families for long durations and performed duty at odd hours in the pressurised atmosphere inside the aircraft for extended periods, the application said.

Instead of being appreciated, they were being victimised and called dull and old with poor shape, they said, adding that the remarks were inhuman because age factor was a natural phenomenon and no woman could remain young forever.

The complainants had also accused the PIA administration of recruiting foreign nationals, from Japan, Thailand, Kenya, Russia and Greece, and offering them a monthly remuneration of $5,000 whereas they were paid Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 a month.

They accused the administration of committing a blunder at a very high cost by appointing foreign crew, most of whom could not even communicate in English — a standard mode of communication throughout the world.

Instead of firing these underutilised and expensive employees, the complainants alleged, the administration was targeting the mainstream female employees who had rendered uncompromised services and should be an asset for any airline.

The PIA was also discriminating against female crew through forced retirement at the age of 45 in violation of earlier judgments of the superior courts where it was directed to follow government retirement rules, they added.