KARACHI, Jan 29: A committee headed by the chief secretary has proposed retail price of milk at Rs37 per litre after consulting all the stakeholders.

The pricing formula worked out by the committee was submitted to a Sindh High Court division bench comprising Justices Azizullah M. Memon and Abdul Rahman Faruq Pirzada by Additional Advocate-General Sarwar Khan on Thursday.

The committee was constituted and its report submitted in pursuance of a court order.

After factoring the various expenses involved, the committee suggested a price of Rs35 a litre for wholesalers. The expenditure includes the initial investment, feeding charges of cattle and daily recurring cost. The production cost is estimated at Rs31 per litre and projects a profit of Rs4 per litre for the wholesalers. The retailers, who would pay the wholesalers Rs35 per litre, would sell it for Rs37 per litre.

The petitioner Milk Sellers and Wholesalers Associations, who had initially challenged the price of Rs28 per litre last year, objected to the pricing formula.

City district government counsel Manzoor Ahmed said the CDGK would enforce whatever price was fixed by the court.

The bench asked the AAG to furnish copies of the price proposal to the petitioners’ counsel, Naeemur Rehman and Abdul Qayyum Abbasi, and adjourned further proceedings to a date in office.

Plea for pension

A Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, M. Javed Buttar and Sabihuddin Ahmed, meanwhile, summoned the additional finance secretary for regulation, federal ministry of finance, to appear in person on or before February 26 in a petition moved by Mst Shamim Akhtar, a former employee of the Urdu Dictionary Board, for payment of pension and grant of other retirement benefits, to the board staff.

The petitioner had written a letter to the chief justice, which was converted by him into a petition under the original human rights jurisdiction of the court. The petitioner said employees in comparable service with other subsidiary organisations and institutions of the federal education ministry were being allowed pensionary benefits.

Deputy Attorney-General Amer Raza Naqvi submitted that no such benefits had been allowed by the federal government to non-statutory organisations working under the education ministry. However, he conceded, some of them extended the benefits under orders passed by the Supreme Court from time to time. The finance ministry, however, did not favour the grant of retirement benefits to employees of organisations created by executive fiats and not under any law.

Hindu council case

The bench referred to the chief justice a direct petition moved by the Hindu Council for enactment of a law to provide for punishment of forced conversion. It said there were cases of Hindu girls being converted to Islam and married off to Muslims. Forced conversions, the petitioner said, should be made punishable to protect the rights of religious minorities. Advocate Mohammad Akram Sheikh, the petitioner’s counsel, requested that the case be heard at the principal seat at Islamabad and the bench allowed the request.

Lecturers’ petitions

The petitions moved by hundreds of lecturers selected by the Sindh Public Service Commission for their posting in the province’s colleges were, meanwhile, adjourned to a date in office after Justice Arshad Noor Khan, a member of the SHC division bench hearing them, excused himself. Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, the senior member of the bench, referred the petitions to the chief justice.

Assistant Advocate-General Adnan Karim Memon earlier argued that the SPSC recommendations were not binding on the chief minister and he could reject them without assigning any reason under the SPSC Act. However, in the instant case the CM had noted that the recruitment was made by a commission that was not properly constituted.

The CM had ordered that a fresh requisition should be made to the commission to re-advertise the vacancies with a view to filling them up at the earliest, the AAG said.