Bar vs bench: LHC judges assure LBA representatives the reference will be withdrawn

Lahore Bar Association agrees to call off strike.

LAHORE:

The latest skirmish between the bar and bench was amicably settled on Wednesday after representatives of the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) met with two judges and the registrar of the Lahore High Court (LHC).

Sources privy to details of the meeting told The Express Tribune that Justice Manzoor Malik and Justice Sheikh Najmul Hassan assured the LBA representatives that the reference filed against them would be withdrawn. The lawyers, in turn, agreed to call off their strike.

On June 5, some lawyers – including the vice president and general secretary of the LBA – had locked the courts of two additional district and sessions judges for ‘not cooperating with them and handling their cases according to their wishes’.

Later, LHC Chief Justice Umar Atta Bandial had asked the registrar to direct District and Sessions Judge Nazir Ahmed Gajana to send a reference against the lawyers involved in the incident to the registrar’s office. The reference, seeking action against the lawyers, was then sent to the disciplinary committee of the Punjab Bar Council. The lawyers named in the reference included LBA Vice Presidents Mian Shehzad Hassan, Irfan Basra (Model Town) and General Secretaries Kamran Bashir Mughal and Nadeem Chaudhry.



The LBA had then observed a two-day strike at lower courts.

According to an LBA member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, some lawyers had prepared a requisition against Justice Bandial and Judge Gajana that they planned to move in the next meeting of the association’s general body. They were planning to send the requisition –demanding the removal of Justice Bandial and Gajana – to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The association was divided on the issue, the member told The Express Tribune. Another group had suggested that the matter be resolved peacefully. Confrontation would only make matters worse, it had said.

The LBA had scheduled a press conference on Monday but cancelled it after some members advised against “sharing details of the rift with the media”.

The Wednesday meeting was attended by LBA President Numan Qureshi, Hassan, Basra, Mughal and Chaudhry. Justice Malik told the bar representatives that Justice Bandial had referred to the lawyers as his “children” and had said that he did not “want to set a cruel precedent”, according to sources privy to the meeting.

Justice Malik had also asked the lawyers to end their boycott and said no one would respect the judiciary if lawyers locked up the courts. A rift between judges and lawyers would send give the impression that the courts were powerless, Justice Malik told the lawyers. “People will start calling Manna Pehalwan to the court to get a decision in their favour,” he is said to have told the LBA representatives.

The sources said that LBA General Secretary Kamran Bashir Mughal had said that instead of filing a reference, the chief justice should have met with them and shared his reservations. The meeting ended after Justice Malik assured the LBA representatives that he would talk to Justice Bandial about withdrawing the reference, the source said. The LBA later held a press conference, announcing the end of the boycott and said that there was no rift between the bar and the bench.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2013.