PM’s resignation: Cracks surface in SCBA over lawyers moot

President Rizvi backs Lahore bar’s show, executive committee chooses to abstain and suspends its secretary

LAHORE: The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Rashid A Rizvi has claimed that all efforts to create divisions among lawyers to stop their movement for resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will fail and lawyers’ convention to be held in Lahore on Saturday (today) will be ‘unprecedented’.

He alleged that the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) was trying to divide lawyers on this issue. Commenting on the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) executive committee’s decision to suspend SCBA secretary, he said the bar has no authority to do so.

His comment came after the SCBA’s executive committee on Friday resolved not to participate in lawyers convention hosted by the LHCBA, according to a press statement issued with signatures of 12 members of the executive committee, excluding the SCBA president and secretary.



“The misconceived announcement that the SCBA is a co-host of this convention is also a misstatement as committee in its 9th meeting on May 2 at Islamabad had not decided in this regard,” it said.

Alleging that the SCBA secretary Aftab Bajwa was involved in activities unbecoming of an office-bearer, the committee ‘by a majority vote suspended him and appointed Badar Munir Malik in his place.’

But the SCBA President Rashid A Rizvi urged lawyers to sink differences and participate in the convention while speaking at a press conference with office-bearers of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHBA).



The convention – scheduled to start at 10am at the LHCBA’s Dr Javed Iqbal Auditorium – will discuss the one-point agenda, that is to seek resignation of the prime minister in the wake of the apex court’s verdict in Panamagate case.

He said the prime minister should have resigned voluntarily after the Supreme Court ordered to form a joint investigation team (JIT) to probe into his alleged corruption.

“With the PM in office, the JIT cannot hold an impartial and fair investigation,” Rizvi said, adding that instead of a JIT, a judicial commission should have been formed.



He said all segments of society should play their role against corruption, adding that justice could not be delivered in a corrupt society. He assailed ruling classes for saying that development projects would suffer if the corrupt is taken to task.

The LHCBA president Chaudhry Zulfiqar said the lawyers’ convention would be a successful show and send across an effective message to the rulers on behalf of lawyers.  “Even constables and patwaris are suspended over graft allegations but the PM is not ready to resign,” he said.

The LHCBA secretary Amir Saeed said though various unseen forces were trying to get their Saturday convention postponed, it could not happen even at the cost of his life.



Rashid Lodhi, the LHCBA vice president, said lawyers were sincere with the cause of democracy and to rid country of corruption would participate in LHCBA’s convention and subsequently participate in the movement for resignation of the PM.