ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday suspended the licence of former president of Islamabad Bar Council (IBC) Riasat Ali Azad and extended the suspension of 23 lawyers regarding storming the judicial compound on February 8th.
A three-member larger bench headed by Chief Justice Athar Minallah and comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Lubna Saleem Pervez heard the complaint filed by the IHC Registrar, wherein, it had already suspended the licenses of 23 lawyers.
The bench also refused to accept the apology of Islamabad Bar Association (IBA) president Kaif Fareed advocate, and directed him to submit the list of lawyers involved in storming the judicial compound to resolve this issue.
During the hearing, Mushtaq Chaudhry advocate on behalf of a lawyer Pir Fida, appeared before the court and submitted that they had not been provided the copy of complaint, therefore, they could not submit their reply.
At this, the IHC chief justice asked him to submit an affidavit stating that he was not involved in attacking the high court building.
Then, the bar president Fareed Kaif Advocate expressed abashment over the incident and tendered an unconditional apology. He also termed the incident as an accidental happening.
However, the bench asked him not to term it as an accidental incident.
The IHC chief justice asked, “Do you want to protect the people involved in attacking the high court?”
Justice Minallah again directed him to produce the list of the names of the lawyers involved in attacking the judicial compound, so that action could be taken against the lawyers who were involved in it.
Another senior lawyer Shoaib Shaheen advocate said media criticised the lawyers for ‘Wuklagardi.’
Justice Minallah said do not blame media as it played a positive role in this matter.
Later, the court also suspended the license of Riasat Ali Azad and refused to restore the licenses of 23 lawyers which have already been suspended, and deferred the proceedings for an indefinite period.
In this regard, the bench had already suspended the licenses of 23 lawyers in misconduct proceedings against them for storming the judicial compound on February 8.
In its order, the court had observed that they are, prima-facie, of the opinion that the 21 respondents arrayed in the complaint in hand had committed grave acts of indiscipline and misconduct on the 8th February 2021.
It added, “In exercise of powers conferred under section 54(1) of the Act of 1973, pending further proceedings, we hereby order suspension of the licenses of the twenty one respondents i.e. Naseer Ahmed Kayani, Tasadduq Hanif, Hammad Saeed Dar, Khalid Mehmood Khan, Ahsan Majeed Gujjar, Akhtar Hussain, Shaista Tabassum, Asad Khan, Faiser Jadoon, Hafiz Malik Mazhar Javed, Khalid Taj, Naveed Hayat Malik, Nazia Abbasi, Nusrat Parveen, Raja Amjad, Raja Khurram Farrukh, Zahid Mehmood Raja, Younas Kayani, Muhammad Umar, Moin Bazai, Pir Fida.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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