ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court asked bar councils on Wednesday to take cognisance of fake and non-professional lawyers in their ranks and observed that only an honest, upright and ethical bar ensured effective administration of justice.

The observation was made by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, which had taken up a case about tendency of exhibiting boorish behaviour in courts and professional misconduct by lawyers.

Punjab Bar Council’s Executive Committee Chairman Chaudhry Abdus Salam informed the court that litigants had lodged 4,295 complaints against advocates for professional misconduct over the past four years, of which 2,938 had been rejected and 1,264 were pending with the bar council’s disciplinary committee.

Know more: Bars asked to identify ‘fake’ lawyers

During the proceedings, Shahzad Ahmed, a lawyer, revealed that Mubaris Khan, a lawyer from Attock who runs an Urdu daily ‘Selection’ and is enrolled with the Punjab Bar Council, had allegedly blackmailed and extorted Rs2 million from his client.

In another case, the lawyer allegedly got Rs5.5m from one Masood Ahmed Mir by running defamatory stories against him in his newspaper.

The disciplinary committee took up the complaint against Mr Mubaris at its meeting on Jan 2013 and, after examining the case, referred it to the bar council’s disciplinary tribunal which is yet to hold a meeting on the matter.

Rawalpindi Bar Association’s former president Sheikh Ahsanuddin admitted that since members of the bar were elected through votes, they avoided proceeding against such lawyers with the objective of getting themselves re-elected.

Chairman of the Sindh Bar Council’s disciplinary committee Salahuddin Gandapur informed the court that 70 of the 82 complaints filed against lawyers were pending with the disciplinary tribunal. He pointed out that the tribunal had not held any meeting since 1993.

“This is not a laughing matter but a national tragedy,” Justice Khawaja regretted.

Justice Ejaz Afzal observed that perhaps the tribunal was waiting for the natural justice by way of the death of complainants.

Salahuddin Rana Zai, the counsel for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council, said that 158 complaints had been filed against advocates for professional misconduct.

He regretted that the disciplinary tribunal had met once in the last six years and decided only two or three cases.

The court directed the bar councils to submit comprehensive statistical data on the latest position of complaints against lawyers.

Published in Dawn March 19th , 2015

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