The Supreme Court of Pakistan was on Monday urged to take action against the Hajj Operators Association of Pakistan (HOAP), a registered association, for alleged cartelisation of the quota for those seeking to attempt Hajj privately and to prevent the allocation of the quota to those who are not registered with the association.
A group of 12 registered private Hajj operators has filed a contempt of court petition in this regard. They claim that this practice has continued even though the top court had directed a decade ago not to continue it.
In their contempt of court petition, the petitioners, led by the Daanish Hajj Services from Charsadda, point out that Saudi Arabia annually allocates a quota of 90,000 pilgrims to Pakistan for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. The government further divides this quota, retaining a portion allocated under price-controlled government offering and the rest to private tour operators, who charge their fees per the services provided or those afforded by their clients.
The petitioners argued that over the past decade, the quota for private Hajj has been monopolised by members of the Hajj Operators of Pakistan (HOAP), a cartel comprising some 769 companies registered with the private association.
They claimed that this cartel was allegedly conniving with certain government officials to ensure that some 1157 other hajj operators, who are registered with the government but are not members of the HOAP, did not get any share in the quota. The petitioners alleged that this monopolisation of private hajj tours was responsible for making Hajj expensive. If a larger pool of Hajj operators were freely competing with each other, they claimed, it would inevitably lead to better services at more affordable prices for the pilgrims.
The petition cites two major Supreme Court precedents on this issue, including the [Dossani Travels Pvt. Ltd. versus Messrs Travels Shop (Pvt) Ltd] (PLD 2014 SC 1), in which the top court held that discrimination between HOAP members and other hajj operators was unreasonable. A few years later, in [‘Muhammad Arif Idrees & Others versus Sohail Aamir and Others’] (2017 SCMR 1379), the top court had reiterated that “there is absolutely no basis, rationale or justification to continue to grant quota only to those who have been granted such quota earlier also, as is presently done…”.
Despite these orders, the petitioners claimed that the accused had, over the past decade, sought to exclude those Hajj group organisers who are not part of the cartel from receiving any quota worth mentioning. Left with no other avenue, the petitioners claimed they were filing the contempt petition in the Supreme Court urging it to implement its order.
The petitioners have included in their petition as respondents: Zulfiqar Haider, Secretary of Ministry of Religious Affairs and Inter-Faith Harmony (MORA) and also members of the Hajj Policy Formulation Committee, which include Dr Aftab Akbar Durrani, Addition Secretary MoRA, Musawwar Abbas, Director (ME) MoFA, Noman Naik, Competition Commission of Pakistan, Pir M. Ishaq, Solicitor General Ministry of Law and Justice, Barrister Munawwar Iqbal Deputy Attorney General, Jamal Khan Tarakai, Chairman HOAP.