Illegal chambers: IHC chief justice to visit Sector F-8 Kutchery today

Notices issued to lawyers’ body of CDA to submit reply

ISLAMABAD: After lawyers built their chambers on land earmarked as a football ground adjacent to the district courts in Sector F-8 Kutchery, the IHC on Monday issued notices to lawyers’ bodies and the civic agency to submit replies while the court’s chief justice announced his plan to visit the district courts on Tuesday (today).

The directives were issued  by a four-member bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), comprising IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzaib, Justice Aamer Farooque and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani, that heard a case filed over the construction of chambers on a football ground — an amenity plot — adjacent to the Sector F-8 Kutchery.



During Monday’s hearing, the petitioner contended that lawyers were acting like a mafia. She added that ever since she had filed the case, lawyers at the district courts had insulted and abused her in the middle of the road and some had even threatened her. Chief Justice Minallah remarked that all the issues of lawyers will be resolved. He also dispelled the impression that judges were on strike.

At this, all lawyers present in the courtroom insisted that judges in the district courts were on strike.

CJ Minallah remarked that he will visit the offices of the Islamabad Bar in the district courts on Tuesday (today) to review the issue. He issued notices to the respondents including the Capital Development Authority (CDA), the Islamabad District Bar Association (IDBA), Islamabad Bar Council and the Pakistan Bar Council.

The case was then adjourned for three weeks. Chief Justice Minallah and Justice Kiyani are expected to visit the district bar on Tuesday afternoon to review the situation. CJ Minallah is also expected to address the bar during the visit.



Late last week, the Islamabad Bar Council had decided to seal some 20 illegal chambers of lawyers built in the Sector F-8 Kutchery. The move was an attempt to appease the judges to resume hearings in the district courts. However, lawyers said that it had failed to sway judges who want the illegal chambers built outside the courts to be demolished first.

Govt, superior judiciary urged to take notice

Meanwhile, a former president of the Islamabad Bar Association, Chaudhry Ashraf Gujjar, has urged the government and the superior judiciary to take notice of the worrying situation at the district courts.

“Fundamentally, this is not just an issue of lawyers, it is an issue of the public at large,” Gujjar said. He stated that the lawyer’s demand of judges’ rotation was not unfair, adding that judges should be rotated after every two to three years, as is the practice in the rest of the country. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2019.