March 6, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 2, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, March 5: The Pakistan Bar Council on Wednesday wrote a letter to Justice M Ashraf Laghari, Sindh High Court judge, to retire on March 6, and refuse extension of three years given to the superior court judges under the Legal Framework Order.

The Bar leaders have termed three years extension to the Supreme Court and high court judges as “dubious gift” of

the military government, and was urging them not to accept the extension and retire on attaining the age of superannuation.

The Bar representatives have written letters to Chief Justice of Pakistan Shaikh Riaz Ahmad and Justice Qazi Mohammad Farooq, asking them to retire on attaining the age of superannuation.

In a letter written to Justice M Ashraf Laghari, SHC, judge, the PBC said the members of legal fraternity across the length and breadth of the country have rejected the Legal Framework Order overwhelmingly and do not recognize it as a substantive part of the 1973 Constitution.

“It is our sincere hope that you shall preserve your distinguished career and lay down the robes of your office on March 6, thereby upholding the supremacy of the 1973 Constitution and take an honourable place amongst the members of legal fraternity to which you will again belong on your retirement.”

The lawyers community have already given call for observing black day on March 8 to protest against introducing amendments in the Constitution through Legal Framework Order, and demanded the judges of the superior judiciary to return the “dubious gift” of extension in their retirement age.

The lawyers community has selected March 8 for protest, the day sitting Chief Justice Shaikh Riaz Ahmad would attain the age of superannuation, and the Bar would ask him to not to accept three years extension.

Justice Qazi Mohammad Farooq, who attained the age of superannuation in December, accepted the extension under the Legal Framework Order and did not retire as demanded by the Bar.