LAHORE, July 2: The Pakistan Bar Council has condemned the provincial government for causing uncertainty about the polls in the Punjab Bar Council, and called lawyers to mount pressure on the government to hold elections to the statutory body within the year 2004.

In a letter to the Punjab Bar Council members, the PBC said it had, through a resolution on May 22, amended the rules of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973, to remove a legal anomaly and paved the way for the elections of bar councils.

The NWFP Bar Council held its elections under the PBC resolution, and Sindh and Balochistan councils also showed their willingness to hold the same. However, the Punjab government, according to the letter, seemed to cause uncertainty in holding bar council elections for which some technical flaws were being pointed out unnecessarily.

The Pakistan Bar Council said lawyers had never extended the legal life of their institutions might it be the bars or the bar councils. The letter of the Punjab advocate-general to the executive committee chairman of the Punjab Bar Council in which he had given reasons to delay elections, amounted to denying lawyers to elect their representatives.

The letter said the Punjab government's attitude was undemocratic and unlawful which must be condemned in the strongest words.