Daily Times

LAHORE: A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Wednesday gave last chance to Lahore High Court Bar Association-Multan (LHCBA-Multan) President Sher Zaman Qureshi to ensure his appearance in the contempt of court proceedings for being rude to a judge of the LHC at the Multan bench.

The bench gave time until August 11 to contemnors with a warning of issuing non-bailable warrant if he did not comply with the order.

The bench observed, “No person in Pakistan can refuse to appear before this court, if summoned. We are showing maximum restraint despite having all powers to make anybody appear before this court.”

On Monday, the Lahore High Court (LHC) larger bench had withdrawn non-bailable arrest warrants for LHCBA-Multan President Sher Zaman Qureshi on the request of senior members of the bar who also undertook to ensure appearance of the lawyer before the bench on Aug 2.

The five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, had issued warrants for the arrest of lawyers Qureshi and Syed Qaiser Abbas Kazmi in addition to contempt of court notices for being rude to a judge of the LHC at the Multan bench.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, a group of mostly young lawyers entered the courtroom of Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah before the proceedings and chanted slogans against the chief justice. They were showing their anger to the judges for summoning their colleagues.

Police personnel deployed outside did not offer any resistance to aggressive lawyers.

When the protesting lawyers were in the courtroom, a delegation led by Lahore High Court Bar Association President Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali had a meeting with the judges of the bench after which he announced that the bench had adjourned proceedings for some other day. The charges lawyers dispersed after the announcement of Ch Zulfiqar.

The LHC spokesman also announced that the bench adjourned the hearing as the judges had to attend funeral for Justice Faisal Zaman’s wife, who died of cancer.

After funeral prayers, Ch Zulfiqar and other senior lawyers appeared before the bench and sought two weeks time for compliance with the order. Ch Zulfiqar said that they had been trying to calm the situation and anger of the Multan’s lawyers and they would resolve the issue.

In an incident that took place on July 24, Qureshi and another lawyer had allegedly misbehaved with Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan and obstructed judicial proceedings of his court in Multan bench and afterwards vandalised and ransacked the court premises and ripped off the name plate of the judge.

After the incident, the chief justice had withdrawn judges working at the Multan Bench and posted them to the Principal Seat, Lahore. Later in view of problems of the litigants the chief justice restored functioning of the Multan registry from July 27 and judges resumed their work.

The larger bench was constituted to proceed against the delinquent lawyers under the law of contempt and High Court Rules and Orders for suspension and/or removal of their practice of the LHC.

Published in Daily Times, August 3^nd 2017.