Lawyers lock two courtrooms

Judges accused of being ‘incompetent’ and uncooperative.

LAHORE:

Several lawyers led by Lahore Bar Associate (LBA) office bearers on Wednesday expelled court staff and locked the courtrooms of two additional district and sessions judges allegedly for not handling their cases according to their wishes.

LBA Vice President Mian Shehzad Hassan, General Secretary Kamran Bashir Mughal and other lawyers locked the doors of the courtrooms of judges Khalid Mehmood Bhatti and Mehr Abid Hussain at around 12 noon. They also threatened court staff with ‘dire consequences’ in case they unlocked the courts. Litigants scheduled to appear in those courts were told to leave.

Witnesses told The Express Tribune that around 10 lawyers entered Judge Bhatti’s court claiming that he was incompetent as a judge. Another group of lawyers alleged the same for Judge Hussain.

Seeking anonymity, a court official told The Express Tribune that LBA General Secretary Mughal had sought a stay order in Judge Bhatti’s court, requesting him not to issue notices to the respondents in the case. Judge Bhatti refused to entertain this request and sent the case file to District and Session Judge Nazir Ahmad Gajana stating that he could not entertain the lawyer’s request for personal reasons.

Mughal flared up and he and several other lawyers locked the court room.

LBA Vice President Hassan, a reliable source said, had sought a clarification [of whether or not there was a stay order] on an application in Judge Hussain’s court. A civil court had earlier granted a stay order on the application, but Hassan wanted a clarification order of whether or not the stay was still standing. However, Judge Hussain told him that the matter would be decided by the civil court.

Talking to The Express Tribune, the LBA vice president said this account was incorrect. He said several lawyers had overheard Judge Hussain saying that he would ‘teach the lawyers a lesson’. That was why they locked his court, Hassan said. In Judge Bhatti’s case, Hassan said, the judge was not ‘cooperating’ with lawyers.

The LBA general secretary said that he had not been involved in the matter. He said the lawyers had locked the judges’ courtrooms because they had not disposed of several cases that had been pending with them for a while.

When asked about the lawyers who had locked the courtrooms, he said he could not name them. The courts were finally unlocked at 4pm.

Later, District and Session Judge Nazir Ahmad Gajana and LBA president Numan Qureshi and Vice President Chaudhry Touqeer Sadiq resolved the mater. No action will be taken against the lawyers and the judges will open their courts the next day.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2013.