Hearing a suo motu case pertaining to the media commission report, the Supreme Court on Monday summoned editor-in-chief of Geo and Jang Group Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman to personally appear before the court on Tuesday (today) and explain why employees of his media group had not been paid salaries for the last three months.
“Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, you can do against me whatever you want but you will have to answer for the non-payment of salaries to your employees,” Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar maintained.
Addressing Geo TV’s senior anchorperson Hamid Mir, who is a petitioner in the media commission case, the chief justice noted that some reporters had approached him with the complaint that they were drawing Rs 12,000 salary per month and that too was not being paid for the last three months, making their livelihood more miserable.
The chief justice asked Hamid Mir that how someone could manage his monthly budget in Rs 12,000. He also asked Mir to raise his voice for those reporters who were getting such a meager salary. “Like anchorpersons, reporters too deserve your sympathy and love,” the chief justice told Mir.
He said reporters were the asset of every media house. He said reporters were also an asset for the anchorpersons as they conduct their programmes on the basis of news gathered by the reporters.
To a query by the chief justice that how much salary he was receiving from Geo TV, Hamid Mir declined to reply, adding that he also had not been paid for the last three month. The chief justice noted that according to the record available with him, an anchorperson of a media group is receiving Rs 5.2 million per month salary, whereas another one is getting Rs 3.2 million per month salary. “If Hamid Mir is not paid three months’ salary, how his Mercedes run,” the chief justice remarked.
The chief justice then ordered Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman to personally appear before the court and explain the non-payment of salaries to media workers employed by Geo and Jang group.
The development comes amid reports of suspension of channels associated with the Geo TV network doing rounds in parts of the country.
Published in Daily Times, April 17th 2018.
