LAHORE, Feb 24: Lahore High Court lawyers go to polls on Saturday to elect their leadership for the year 2006-07. The situation turned a little easy for presidential candidate Ghulam Sabir Kaifi on Friday when one of the candidates, Abdur Rashid Qureshi, announced his withdrawal in his favour. Yet, his smooth sailing in the contest remained as uncertain as before.

The presidential contest is virtually a direct fight between Ghulam Sabir Kaifi (Progressive Group) and Mian Israrul Haq (Lawyers Group) although Muazzam Iqbal Gill is also in the run merely on the ballot paper.

Meanwhile, senior lawyer Tariq Aziz has said the LHCBA election falls within the mischief of illegality because the executive committee is not being chosen along with four office-bearers.

Quoting from the High Court Rules, he said they stipulated the election of not less than five members of the LHCBA executive committee along with other office-bearers. He said he had sent a letter to LHCBA president Fakhrunnisa Khokhar pointing out to her the statutory obligation, but she ignored it. He said the bar election for years had been held without the executive committee members and all these elections were unlawful.

He said the new president could still restore the legality of the bar by holding by-election for five executive committee members.