Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), apex body of the lawyers in the country, can exercise powers to reconstitute standing committees to run its affairs. The PBC was rendered non-functional in September 2016 after change of its chairman through voting and the subsequent staying of all its standing committees by the Supreme Court. The PBC finally chose its new leader Mohammad Ahsan Bhoon as vice chairman.
Bhoon is a former judge of Lahore High Court who was also elected as vice-chairman of the Punjab Bar Council and managed to bag the coveted slot by 12 votes from the 23-member PBC. Outgoing chairman of the legal education committee Muhammad Shoaib Shaheen and others challenged reconstitution of committees before the Islamabad High Court which remanded the case back to the PBC for deciding the issue after observing all legal formalities. However, Shaheen and others challenged the IHC verdict before the Supreme Court and a three-member bench headed by Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh and comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab had reserved judgment in the matter.
On Thursday, announcing its 41-page judgment the Supreme Court turned down the plea by majority of two judges to one judge, as Justice Umar Ata Bandial wrote dissenting note in the verdict. Justice Faisal Arab authored the verdict whereas Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh gave an additional note in the verdict.
Justice Faisal Arab said that under the provisions of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules, 1976, the Bar Council is not prevented from exercising its power to withdraw its delegated authority from a set of committee members and entrust it to another.
Remanding the matter back to the Council, Justice Faisal Arab asked the body to decide the issue in accordance with the rules. Giving his dissenting note to two other members of the bench Justice Umar Ata Bandial wrote, "The fundamental basis of the council requires that any contradictory lacuna in its framework be removed by expressing law. Accordingly, it is recommended that the requisite amendments be framed by the council within a period of six months from the date of this judgment."
Justice Bandial further remarked, "In case the council fails to frame the requisite amended rule(s) within the given timeframe, then it is observed that as a default measure, the presently elected members of the committees and the disciplinary tribunal of the council shall be deemed to have a term of two years rather than five years. In other words, they shall upon the lapse of two years after their election to their offices be required to secure a fresh vote of confidence of the majority of the total members of the council in order to retain their offices."
"At the said election of the committees, the council shall, if so inclined, have the opportunity to fix a shorter term of the committees. The fresh elections for constituting the committees and disciplinary tribunal of the council shall accordingly be held in the month of January 2018 on a date fixed by the chairman of the council," Justice Bandial concluded.