November 18, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 19, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 17: A strike was observed by lawyers at the City Courts and Malir Distract Courts on Monday in protest against the Pakistan Bar Council’s move to cancel the licences of certain office-bearers of the Peshawar and Multan high courts’ bar associations.

Members and supporters of the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) boycotted legal proceedings in response to its call for the protest.

Under-trial prisoners were brought to the City Courts’ lockup from different prisons but most of the cases could not proceed owing to the boycott. Meanwhile, the KBA held its general body meeting with its president, Mahmoodul Hasan, in the chair. The meeting condemned the PBC move and termed it “an illegal act”.

Mr Hasan said that Peshawar bar chief Latif Afridi, Multan bar chief Mahmood Ashraf Khan and general secretary Rana Naveed had been participating in the lawyers’ movement actively throughout the course of the struggle, alleging that the PBC was victimising them by suspending their licences. “Such tactics are being adopted to exert pressure on the legal fraternity to give up its struggle,” he claimed.

He asked the lawyers’ apex body to withdraw the decision within three days, warning that pro-government PBC members would be barred from entering the Karachi bar and Sindh high court bar associations if the demand was not met.

KBA general secretary Naeem Qureshi was of the view that the PBC was not authorised to suspend lawyers’ licences. He warned that lawyers, after consulting the Supreme Court Bar Association, would lock up subordinate courts in Karachi if the PBC did not withdraw its decision.

After the meeting, protesting lawyers took out a rally from the KBA office and staged a sit-in on M.A. Jinnah Road. Movement of vehicular traffic on the road remained suspended during the sit-in.