Pakistanis will have to shell out more for samosas following a Supreme Court ruling, a move that has left a leading Pakistani daily wondering whether it was the "court's best use of time". An editorial in the Dawn on Wednesday said that the days of the cheap samosa are over.
“While the savoury little delight is consumed with great relish by Pakistanis around the year, sales of the samosa skyrocket during Ramazan, as it is a staple of the iftar spread,” it said. The Supreme Court has set aside a notification of the Punjab government regulating the price of samosas.
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In 2009, the City District Government Lahore had fixed price of one samosa at Rs 6 and magistrates imposed fine on shopkeepers for selling the same at a higher price. The Punjab Bakers and Sweets Federation, through its president Chaudhry Muhammad Afzal, had challenged this order at the time, but the Lahore HC had dismissed the petition.
The petitioner moved an appeal in the Supreme Court Lahore Registry arguing that Samosa is not an item notified under the Punjab Foodstuffs (Control) Act 1958; therefore, its price cannot be fixed by the provincial government.
The Punjab government’s counsel submitted that the government had the power to fix prices of items that were being sold to the public at large. The daily noted that while the commercial bakers will rejoice at the verdict, “others waiting for justice in Pakistan’s ever-clogged judicial system may be wondering when their turn will come”.
With a question of interpretation of a law at stake, the Supreme Court was the ultimate forum for resolving the matter, however trifling it may appear to the average citizen. The question, then, is whether the superior judiciary should devise some rules and a system to fast-track more urgent and serious matters for justice rather than spend valuable time on a regulation that is virtually unenforceable in any case...,” it said.
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