LAHORE, Dec 18: Munir A. Malik of the Hamid Khan-Ashraf Wahla group on Monday returned as president of the Supreme Court Bar Association by a margin of 31 votes. This is an improvement over his lead of four votes he bagged in the first vote on Oct 31.

Unofficial results suggest that the group has swept the second vote as almost all its candidates emerged victorious in all the four provinces.

Mr Malik secured 630 votes against 598 polled by his rival Raja Haq Nawaz, a candidate fielded by the Malik Qayyum-Lateef Khosa faction.

Syed Zulfiquar Ali Bokhari of the Hamid-Wahla group won as secretary of the SCBA by a lead of 96 votes. Sahibzada Anwar Hameed of the same group was elected vice-president with a convincing margin of 163 votes.

As for the other vice-president from Balochistan, Imranul Haq won by a huge lead of over 400 votes. Vice-presidents from Sindh, Khawaja Saeed Ahmad Khan, and from the NWFP, Mohammad Saeed Akhtar Khan, also stood elected after the retirement of their rivals from the contest.