ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday granted a stay order over the reconstitution of 21 standing committees of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC). The court ruled that initiation of any action pertaining to reconstitution of committees would remain suspended while the elected members of committees would be allowed to perform their functions.
The ‘conflict of interest’ between the two groups of the country’s apex legal body was exposed when Chairman Executive Committee PBC Abdul Fayaz switched his loyalty from Advocate Hamid Khan led Professional Group to Advocate Asma Jahangir led Democratic Group in an unexpected way. The loyalty-change enabled Asma’s Democratic Group to gain a majority in the body which had led her to capture the chairmanship of 21 PBC standing committees.
Subsequently, the skirmish of the Bar placed before the bench by invoking a writ petition under Article 199 of the Constitution jointly filed by Chairman Legal Education Committee Advocate Muhammad Shoaib Shaheen, Chairman Law Reforms Committee Chaudhry Ishtiaq Ahmed and Chairman Appeal Committee Tahir Nasrullah. A divisional bench of IHC comprising Justice Shaukat Aziz Saddiqui and Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi took up the case for hearing on the same day it was instituted.
During the course of hearing, Hamid Khan, Quasian Faisal Mufti, Ajmal Ghaffar Toor and Niaz Ullah Niazi, counsels for petitioner appeared before the bench and contended that the petitioners were elected as Chairman/members of the respective committees for 5years as mandated by Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act 1973.
They revealed that affairs of PBC were carried out in accordance with the law and without any nepotism. This was evident when a meeting of PBC was requisitioned on September 3 where the issue of reconstitution of the Committee was neither included in original regular agenda nor was it made part of the additional agenda.
They further said that the vice chairman PBC and 10 other members requested ex-officio Chairman Ashtar Ausaf to defer the agendas in the wake of the terrorist attack in Mardan but he refused to accept the request. Consequently, the 10 members along with the vice chairman decided not to participate in the meeting. However, the non-participants, the petitioners, came to know through different press clippings regarding the reconstitution of new Committee without taking them into consent.
According to the petition, the committees have been constituted in pursuance of Section 15 of the 1973 Act read with Rule 86 of the Rules of 1976. Committees also reserve the statutory protection under Rule 100 read with Section 4 of the Act, therefore, the intervention of ex-officio Chairman through arbitrary act is illegal, unlawful and malafide.
The petition further stated that consideration of agenda items requires a notice of 8 days, however, in this case, no such request for reconstitution of committees was made. “However, on the basis of a secret letter, the committees of the PBC have been re-constituted in violation of Rule 89 as well,” stated the petition. Counsels for the petitioners prayed before the court to declare the reconstitution of committees of the PBC void, unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional.
Suspending the orders of reconstitution of committees, the divisional bench of IHC directed the respondents including Chairman PBC to submit a reply within 15 days commencing from 19 September. The date for the next hearing is fixed for September 22.