LAHORE, Aug 9 The process of verification of lawyers' graduation and law degrees will be executed with the help of bar councils' enrolment record and respective colleges and universities from where degrees have been obtained, sources told Dawn.

They said all those lawyers, who either have fake degrees or are not engaged with the profession, were being identified by intelligence agencies on the directive of the federal government to identify 'ghost' lawyers, troublemakers and criminal-minded elements in the profession.

A practicing lawyer, who wished not to be named, told Dawn that a good number of lawyers, after getting their law degrees from non-recognised colleges of Sindh, had been practicing law in Punjab. According to the Punjab Bar Council record, there are 65,000 lawyers enrolled with the council.

Sources said officials were also considering to tap cell-phone calls of the office-bearers of lawyer bodies and the lawyers with suspicious conduct to glean inside information about their activities and future plans.

Dawn further learnt that a large number of lawyers enrolled with the bar councils, who are not practicing law, are either engaged in any business or other professions like journalism in violation of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act of 1973.A senior lawyer, who is a contender in the Punjab Bar Council election, told Dawn that a large number of people were not practicing law but always appeared on the scene when bar elections and campaigns approached. Similarly, such elements were also seen when any protest or strike call was announced by the lawyer bodies, he added.

According to the act, he said, if a lawyer was enrolled he neither could do any business nor could he adopt any other profession. He added that such a lawyer must get his licence cancelled in case of not practicing.

He said out of the 16,000 lawyers enrolled with the PbBC in Lahore, around 3,000 to 4,000 lawyers appeared in elections for voting.

“There is a need to cancel licences of all those lawyers who are out of profession,” he said, adding that all those who were considered rotten eggs must also be separated from the profession.

Punjab Bar Council vice-chairman Malik Asif told this correspondent that they had no mechanism to check any lawyer engaged in some other profession. However, we do have the list of the colleges whose degrees are recognised by the bar council, he said.

As for those who come to serve in Punjab from other provinces, he said such lawyers submitted NOCs issued to them by their respective bar councils.