Bar versus bench: Legal fraternity boycotts courts in Karachi

KBA calls strike after judicial magistrate registers FIR against lawyer

KARACHI: Lawyers in Karachi boycotted court proceedings on Saturday as the police booked one of their comrades for allegedly thrashing a judge to obtain a desired order.

Karachi Bar Association had called the strike after a judicial magistrate registered an FIR under the Anti-Terrorism Act at the City Courts police station against a lawyer. The South district judge, Syed Imran Imam Zaidi, complained to the police that lawyer Suleman Abbasi had beaten him up inside his courtroom and even dragged him outside in public.

According to the judge, Abbasi was trying to force him to order the release of an under-trial prisoner and, when it did not work, he resorted to insolent behaviour, hurled abuses and started advancing towards him in a menacing way. There were other lawyers present at the scene, too, who attempted to stop him and asked the judge's gunman, Shakil, to get the abusing person out of the court, read the FIR.

It added that the man then scuffled with the gunman and attacked him. The judge intervened and told the gunman to leave, stated the FIR, adding that he complied with the instructions and left.

"Afterwards, the man [Abbasi] became more infuriated and grabbed me by my collar," the judge was quoted as complaining. "Let us teach you a lesson at the Karachi Bar room, he yelled."

According to the FIR, the judge was then dragged out of the courtroom in public in the presence of lawyers, court staffers, litigants and police guards, as the man kept pushing him through the staircase of the building to the office of the KBA. He also uttered derogatory words for the higher judiciary, it added.

The office-bearers and other members in the KBA office, after listening to the testimony of Advocate Noor Muhammad, who accompanied Abbasi to the judge's chamber, found Abbasi guilty of misbehaving, read the FIR. The bar then apologised to the judge and let him go back to his office, respectfully.

The incident occurred on September 5 and remained unreported as apparently a compromise had reached between the bar and the bench. According to some informed sources, a top district judge mediated the patch-up. The tables turned again, however, when the higher judiciary took notice of the incident and advised the magistrate to register a case against the alleged abuser.

Thus, a week into the incident, the judge registered a complaint with the police that, since then, he, other judicial officers and staffers, were terrified and feared that Abbasi may cause them some injury in such acts of 'terrorism'.

Recording the statement of the judge, the police registered a case under sections 353 (assaulting public servant), 365 (kidnapping or abducting), 506 (criminal intimidation), 504 (provoking breach of peace), 186 (obstructing public servant), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 228 (intentional insult or interruption to public servant sitting in judicial proceeding) of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Learning about the case, the legal fraternity announced a strike, calling it a move to instigate tension between 'the bench and the bar'. The city courts wore a deserted look as the gates were locked down early morning as a sign that no legal proceedings will take place today. Similarly, other regular and special courts, and even the appellate Sindh High Court, were boycotted.

The KBA held a meeting at its office in which a resolution was passed that no lawyer will appear before Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, a senior high court judge, in protest. The protest will continue until the FIR is taken back.

In retaliation, the lawyers have also moved an application with the police to book the judge's guard for allegedly beating up the lawyer. "The application, however, was turned down for its non-maintainability as it seemed [to be] a counter step," an officer at the City Courts police station told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2015.