The Supreme Court could not pay a review visit to its last year's judgement on the law that regulates the conditions of service of newspaper employees and so also 7th Wage Board Award here on Thursday and refixed the next hearing a week hence. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary passed the order after the APNS counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada pointed out that the full bench of the nation's last court of appeals was short of one judge. Since the original judgement on the APNS plea against the Pakistan Newspaper Workers (Condition of Service) Act of 1973 was pronounced by a full court of three judges, the review could only be heard by a bench of the same strength.
Besides Justice Chaudhary, Justice Rana Baghwandas was present on the Bench while Justice Falak Sher was on a short leave.
Afzal Siddiqui and Hameed Ahmed assisted Barrister Pirzada during the short appearance on Thursday.
The lead counsel also drew the attention of the judges to a petition the newspaper workers had filed against a decision of the Sindh High Court's restrains put on the Wage Board Implementation Cell of the Federal Government and suggested that it should be heard at the same time.
Justice Chaudhary, however, said that the Bench was unaware of the worker's move and would wait until it was fixed for a hearing.