September 25, 2008	Thursday	Ramazan 24, 1429

RAWALPINDI, Sept 24: An active member of the executive body of the High Court Bar Association (HCBA) here on Wednesday resigned, saying the decision to cancel the proposed address of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to Rawalpindi lawyers on Wednesday was taken without taking the members into confidence.

Mohammad Anwar Dar, in a press release, said he was upset over the decision of the lawyers’ leadership about not staging a sit-in outside the Parliament House on June 13 after a successful long march but kept on taking part in the following protests and court boycotts in solidarity with the deposed judges.

The cancellation of Justice Chaudhry’s address to the HCBA Rawalpindi bench was aimed at sabotaging the movement of the lawyers’ fraternity, he added.

He criticised the top leaders of the lawyers without naming anybody, as they were trying to put an end to the struggle of the lawyers for the independence of judiciary. They said the events of the last two weeks – swearing-in of some deposed judges and the cancellation of the address of the deposed chief justice – had forced him not to carry on with his duties as an executive body member.