At loggerheads: Supreme Court bar challenges ruling on replacing counsel

Pleads apex court to allow a litigant to change his lawyer in review case

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has decided to challenge the Supreme Court’s rules that bar a litigant to replace his counsel in review case.

Appearing before a five-judge bench on Thursday, SCBA president Kamran Murtaza pleaded that SCBA wants to become party in a review petition filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) ex-MNA Sumaira Malik against her disqualification.

While referring to the SCBA’s March 26 resolution, he stated that the lawyers were of the view that SC rules 1980 order 26 was against Article 10 (A) of the Constitution. In view of SCBA president’s plea, the court adjourned the hearing indefinitely.

In the first round of litigation, Malik’s case was pleaded by advocate Iftikhar Gillani. According to Supreme Court rules, a petitioner cannot change their counsel when filing a review petition on an earlier judgment.

Now the petitioner has replaced her counsel and hired Asma Jahangir to contest the review petition against SC’s October 28, 2013 judgment that placed a life ban on her for contesting future elections.

Later on, Malik Umer Aslam, the man who challenged former parliamentarian Sumaira Malik’s victory from constituency NA-69 Khushab-I in the 2008 general elections again challenged Asma Jehangir’s appointment as his opponent’s counsel.

It is pertinent to note that Sumaira Malik has challenged a Supreme Court October 28, 2013 decree that barred her from contesting polls for life on charges of forging her degree of graduation.

The review petition stated that the law does not grant the court powers to impose a lifelong penalty on the petitioner, particularly as other more serious offences for disqualification of candidates have been given limited periods of debarring.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2014.