Above the law: Lawyers brawl again at Sessions Court

Judge flees courtroom as lawyers thrash bail seekers.

LAHORE:

Groups of lawyers flung chairs and tables at each other in a mass brawl at the Sessions Court on Saturday in the latest example of violence and impunity among members of the profession.

The fight began inside the courtroom of Additional District and Sessions Judge Malik Tariq Mehmood Zargham, when three men accused of criminal breach of trust turned up for the hearing of their pre-arrest bail plea at around 2:10pm.

The complainant in the case was Advocate Shahzad Yousaf, who alleges that they invested Rs3.25 million of his money in a business without his consent. Yousaf and some 15 other lawyers set upon the three petitioners when they entered the dock, witnesses told The Express Tribune.

The judge escaped to his retiring room and staff and some female lawyers fled via the main door. The lawyers locked the courtroom from the inside and alternately remonstrated with the petitioner’s counsel and thrashed the three men for around half an hour. The police made no attempt to enter the room.

The lawyers then flung open the doors and dragged the three men outside to their chambers, with their counsel in tow. When other lawyers confronted them, a mass brawl ensued and the court premises quickly turned into a battlefield. Men picked up chairs and tables from the lawyers’ chambers and threw them at each other. The fighting continued for about an hour. Again, police made no apparent attempt to stop it.



Security failure

Inspector Mobeen, who is in charge of security at the Sessions Court, admitted that security officials were unable to control the lawyers. Asked why they had not tried to stop the fighting, he said: “The lawyers don’t respect anyone.”

The lawyers who started the fight later handed over the three petitioners – Saiful Islam, Muhammad Humayun and Shabraiz – to Islampura police.

Advocate Yousaf denied that he and other lawyers had assaulted anyone and claimed that the petitioners had attacked him and his colleagues, leaving two of them, Rana Adeel Sajjad and Babar Bilal Awan with fractured arms. He alleged that they had stolen Rs20,000 and two mobile phones from them too. He said that the lawyers representing the other side also assaulted them. He said that they had applied to the Islampura SHO to register a case, but he had declined to do so as yet.

Amjad Hussain and Mian Hafeez, who are representing Islam, Humayun and Shabraiz, said that CCTV footage from the Sessions Court would quite clearly show their clients being dragged out of the courtroom on the first floor to the ground floor and who had attacked whom first.

Yousaf had earlier lodged an FIR against Islam, Humayun and Shabraiz at Gulberg police station under Section 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the Pakistan Penal Code. He alleged that he had Rs3.25 million that he had planned to use to buy a plot of land. However, before he could do so, he had had to go to his village for an emergency. He had left the money for safekeeping with his partners and they had assured him that he would get it back the next day. However, when he had returned, he had been unable to contact them as their mobile phones had been switched off. Four days later, they had told him that they had invested the money in another business and they had no money to return to him.

Shabraiz, one of the accused, said that the allegations made in the FIR were false.

He said that he and the others were Yousaf’s partners in a restaurant, but the business had tanked. Shehzad had then lodged the FIR in order to blackmail his former partners and recover his investment.

Islam, Humayun and Shabraiz remained at Islampura police station when this story was filed on Saturday evening, but were not formally under arrest.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2013.