New leadership: Lawyers vote today to pick new LHCBA leadership

Polling to start at 9am after a general house meeting.

LAHORE: As many as 19,672 lawyers are set to vote to pick new Lahore High Court Bar Association leaders in an election to be held on Saturday (today).

A general house meeting is scheduled for 8am. Polling will start at 9am. There will be a lunch break from 1pm to 2pm. Polling will end at 5pm.

Election Board Chairman Shehzad Shaukat on Friday said lawyers would be able to vote through biometric and manual ballots. He said steps would be taken to ensure all bar members can cast their votes. He said over time, biometric voting would be standardised.



As many as 10 candidates are contesting for four slots - president, vice president, secretary and finance secretary. Two hopefuls each are running for president, vice president and secretary. Four are running for finance secretary.

Muhammad Shahid Maqbool Sheikh and Pir Muhammad Masood Chishti are contesting for the presidential slot. Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Senator Babar Awan is supporting Chishti and another PPP senator, Kazim Khan, is supporting Sheikh. Sheikh belongs to the Professional Group headed by Advocate Hamid Khan. LHCBA president Shafqat Chohan and former presidents Advocate Mian Israr and Advocate Ahmed Awais are also supporting him.

Chishti is a former member of the Punjab Bar Council and former Punjab law secretary. He is being supported by Ahsan Bhoon Group including Asma Jahangir, Azam Nazir Tarar, Chaudhary Naeem and Abid Saqi. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) advocates Naseer Bhutta and Khawaja Mahmood Ahmed are also supporting him. Bar pundits predict Chishti’s victory. Muhammad Ahmad Qayyum, son of Justice (r) Muhammad Qayyum, and Mian Asghar Ali are running for secretary.  Kazim Khan and former LHCBA president Abid Saqi, a PPP activist, are supporting Qayyum. Lawyers associated with PML-N are also supporting him.

Qayyum is also being supported by Asma Jahangir and Rana Mashhood group. Ahmed Qayyum had announced his candidature for the slot three years ago but had withdrawn a few days ahead of the election.

Ali has the support of Hamid Khan Group. He had participated in last year’s election and lost. Suphia Masood and Muhammad Irfan Arif Sheikh are contesting for vice president. Sheikh had contested in last year’s election but had lost. Azeem Akram, Nabeela Manzoor Jafri, Amina Ajmal and Syed Akhtar Hussain Sherazi are contesting for finance secretary. Jafri and Sherazi had contested last year and had lost.LHCBA has 24,730 members and 19,672 are voting members.

LHCBA President Shafqat Chohan had announced that the voting would be through biometrics and no one would be allowed to cast votes through manual voting.

However, only 11,100 voters have data for biometrics voting and the chairman election board announced manual balloting in addition to biometrics.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2015.