Lawyers’ alleged maltreatment: Sindh lawyers shun courts after Isb lawyers’ beating

In protest against maltreatment of lawyers by police in Islamabad, lawyers cancel CJ’s farewell.

SUKKUR/ KARACHI: To protest the maltreatment of lawyers by the police in Islamabad on Tuesday, the legal fraternity in Sindh stayed away from the courts on Wednesday.

The lawyer fraternity boycotted from all proceedings of the high court and the lower courts in solidarity with the lawyers of Punjab, who were maltreated by the police. The lawyers put off all the hearings fixed for the day till tomorrow.



Sindh High Court Bar Association Sukkur president Qurban Malano said violence is not acceptable and is strongly condemned. He said the lawyers had gathered outside the Supreme Court to put their demands to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The situation got worse due to the mishandling of the matter, he said.

The Sukkur district bar association president, Hadi Bux Bhatt, lamented the way the lawyers were dealt with. He said the lawyers were facing problems due to the backlog of the cases and shortage of judges. The lawyers had gone to Islamabad to register their protest against the shortage of judges and demanding more benches of the high court throughout the province, he said.

The miscreants tried to enter the Supreme Court building but they could have been stopped by the police through negotiations, instead of resorting to baton-charging. Bhatt threatened of widespread protests if cases were not registered against Islamabad IG and interior minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan.

Meanwhile, the members of the Sindh High Court Bar Association did not turn up in the courts to plead their cases. As a result, hundreds of cases fixed for hearing on Tuesday could not be heard.

CJ’s farewell cancelled

The Sindh High Court Bar Association in Karachi cancelled its farewell dinner for Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to protest the incident of the lawyers’ maltreatment by the police on the Supreme Court premises on Monday.

Talking to The Express Tribune, the association’s president Mustafa Lakhani said there was widespread resentment among the legal fraternity over the Islamabad incident because of which they cancelled the dinner scheduled for Wednesday to bid farewell to the CJ Chaudhry who is retiring next month.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2013.