PESHAWAR, July 13: With a visible split among the lawyers’ community here over the Hasba bill, a meeting of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association was adjourned on Wednesday amid speeches for and against the bill. The meeting, held with the association’s vice-president Hidayatullah Afridi in the chair, decided after discussion of more than two hours to meet again on July 14 (Thursday) for adopting a resolution regarding the proposed Hasba law.

Qazi Muhammad Anwer, Barrister Masood Kausar, Barrister Bacchaa, Lateef Afridi, Said Tahar Khan, Hidayatullah Muhammadzai, Waris Khan, Fida Gul, Ghulam Nabi, and others addressed the meeting.

The lawyers affiliated with the Jamaat-i-Islami said that the proposed law was in conformity with the Constitution and Islamic injunctions and it should not be opposed “just for the sake of opposition”.

“The bill is almost identical to that of the federal and Punjab laws regarding the institution of ombudsman and there are only a few minor changes in it,” said Ghulam Nabi.

He added that the right of appeal was given in the law and nowhere was it mentioned that the mohtasib would exercise judicial powers except that of contempt of court.

Denouncing the bill, Qazi Muhammad Anwer said this was an extreme adventure on part of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government. “The proposed law will undo various institutions as laws are already present about most of the issues mentioned in the bill,” he said.

Mr Anwer said that wide-ranging powers had been assigned to the mohtasib under section 10 and 23 of the bill.

He added that nowhere the institution of mohtasib enjoyed such powers as the mohtasib mentioned in the Hasba bill would head a stick-wielding force, imposing its own brand of Islam.

Barrister Masood Kausar said the Constitution of Pakistan included the concurrent and federal legislative lists and the provincial assembly had no powers to legislate in the domain of the federal legislation.

He said the laws were already there. The only thing the government had to do was to strengthen the existing institutions for effective implementation.

Lateef Afridi said that the proposed law would isolate the Pukhtoons across the world with everyone being dubbed Taliban. He added that the Pukhtoons had already been passing through a crucial phase of history.