Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday ordered provincial government to pay the government advertisement dues to print media within 15 days after carrying out the scrutiny of bills. A division bench of SHC comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Agha Faisal issued these orders in response to a petition, filed by Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors' (CPNE's) Secretary General Dr Jabbar Khattak against Sindh Government for not paying the dues of newspapers on account advertisement, lying outstanding since 2005-06.

The court also ordered the Sindh Government that the payment of outstanding dues of newspapers should not be affected in the next budget of provincial government. Bench directed that Inspection Team of Chief Minister Sindh should scrutinize the bills of government advertisements, so that the payment could be made in 15 days.

CPNE in its petition made Sindh Government, Department of Information & Archives respondents. CPNE stated that despite availing the advertisements from member organizations of the petitioner, respondents have failed to fully clear the bills of the member organizations for the fiscal years 2005-06, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.

The petitioner and its members have been running from pillar to post for the clearance of the outstanding liabilities against respondents, but to no avail.

Due to timely non-payment of the outstanding advertisement dues and liabilities against the respondents, liabilities have piled up in billions of rupees, the petitioner said and added that due to non-payment of the bills, newspapers are facing a severe financial crunch, causing job losses in print media industry.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019