Sans Islamabadi representation: New IHC building inaugurated

Capital’s bar associations boycott ceremony.

ISLAMABAD:

The pleas of Islamabad’s legal fraternity, it seems, have finally been answered in the form of a new, Rs1.95 billion building for Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The building — formally inaugurated by the Chief Justice (CJ) of the Supreme Court (SC) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary on Tuesday — covers five acres of land on Constitution Avenue adjacent to the Radio Pakistan building.

The ceremony was attended by SC and IHC judges, and a few lawyers, but none of the representatives of the IHC or city district bars was seen.

Originally allotted for the city district court, the IHC is currently housed at the judicial complex in Sector G-10/1. As lawyers and litigants were running out of space at the city court in Sector F-8, demands had surfaced for it to be shifted to its original location.

Due to a shortage of space, lawyers in F-8 have constructed illegal chambers and have even tried to take over a local playground, a move later addressed by the CDA’s enforcement directorate.

The government has budgeted Rs600 million this year for the project, which is expected to take three years to complete.

Interestingly, a petition seeking the transfer of the city court to its original building was filed by a former Islamabad District Bar Association (IDBA) president last month, is still awaiting a decision and the ceremony was held without the presence of the presidents of the Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA) and IDBA as they had boycotted the ceremony.

According to the rules, out of a full bench of seven judges, at least one should hail from Islamabad. For this reason, Punjab Bar Council member Raja Ishtiaq, SC lawyer Anees Jilani, and IHCBA president Haroon Rasheed had been nominated but the CJ scrapped the names of all three nominees.  This, according to the sources, was why the bar associations had boycotted the ceremony.

When contacted, IHCBA spokesperson Chaudhry Khalid confirmed the boycott and said the decision was taken after a joint meeting of the bars on Tuesday morning.

DBA President Dr Anwar told The Express Tribune that despite the special quota for Islamabad, there is still no judge in the IHC who represents the federal capital.

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