The Lahore High Court (LHC), Multan Bench, remained open on Tuesday for litigants but a negligible numbers of cases could be taken up for adjudication, owing to lawyers continued boycott of the judges, who took oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), promulgated by General Musharraf following imposition of state of emergency in the country.
Two judges of the LHC, Multan Bench, Justice Hasnat Ahmed and Justice Khalid Alvi, have taken oath under the PCO on the second day after proclamation of emergency in the country.
President Lahore High Court Bar Association Multan Bench, Habib-ullah Shakir, said that the lawyers were not ready to argue and plead cases before, what he said PCO judges. However, he said, they would keep on pleading cases in lower courts for the convenience of general public.
Advocate Saeed Javed Akhtar of People's Lawyers Forum said that they were supposed to follow instructions issued by the Pakistan Bar Council and Punjab Bar Council. "There are clear instructions that no lawyer would plead any case before judges who had taken oath under the PCO but they have allowed us to follow cases in lower courts," he said.
Meanwhile, lawyers on Tuesday observed a complete strike against the imposition of emergency rule and arrests of their colleagues across the province. The members of District Bar Association (DBA) and the Multan High Court Bar Association (MHCBA) held protest meetings at the bar room and paid tributes to detained lawyers for struggling for rule of law, supremacy of constitution and independence of judiciary.
They demanded immediate release of the arrested lawyers and restoration of all judges, including the CJP. Vice president DBA Multan Raja Gul Shahid, Syed Irfan Shamsi, Arif Alvi, Sikandar Javed, Khurshid Ahmed and other senior lawyers while addressing the meeting strongly condemned the emergency rule.
President LHCBA Multan chapter, Habibullah Shakir said that 19arrested Multan-based lawyers were divided into three groups and sent to jails of far-flung areas. He said the lawyers were kept in solitary confinement in Attock, Jhelum and Mianwali jails. They were denied all facilities allowed under the detention laws.
He said relatives of the detained lawyers had not been allowed to meet them. General he informed that the secretary LHCBA Rana Naveed Akhtar, who was arrested on November 5, was also shifted to Mianwali prison.