ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) wants to challenge Supreme Court’s rules which bar change of lawyer in a review petition.

This was stated by SCBA President Kamran Murtaza before a five-judge larger bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja on Thursday. The court had taken up a review petition of Sumaira Malik who lost her seat after she was disqualified.

On Oct 28 last year, a three-judge SC bench headed by then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had slapped a life ban on her becoming a member of parliament for possessing a fake degree.

The court held in its judgment that the BA degree of Ms Malik had been a result of impersonation, fraud and falsehood and, therefore, such a person was not qualified to contest for not being sagacious, righteous, non-profligate and honest as ordained by Article 62(1-f) of the Constitution.

Ms Malik filed a petition saying the order was based on conjectures and speculations. But instead of Advocate Iftikhar Gillani, who had represented her in the first round of litigation, she appointed rights activist Asma Jehangir to plead her case.

The Supreme Court rules state that the lawyer who had argued the matter earlier will appear before the court on a review petition.

Ms Jehangir is of the opinion that Rule 6 of Order 26 of the Supreme Court Rules 1980 barring the change of counsel violates Article 10 A of the Constitution which ensures the right to fair trial.

The court had earlier appointed senior lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan as amicus curiae to assist it in the matter.

On Thursday, Kamran Murtaza referred to a resolution adopted by the SCBA on March 29 in Lahore and said that in view of the resolution the association had decided to become a party in the case.

The resolution says the SCBA meeting decided to file a petition against the Rule 26 barring the change of counsel. It empowered the SCBA president to meet the chief justice to discuss the rule which the resolution said was against Article 10(A) of the Constitution.

Later talking to Dawn, Mr Murtaza said he had met former chief justice Tassaduq Jillani who assured him that he would look into the matter.

He said the SCBA case was independent of Sumaira Malik’s review petition because it revolved only around the change of counsel in review. “We believe that the rule sometimes bring difficulty rather become disadvantageous for litigants because they have to rely on the same counsel who failed to bring any relief for the client in the case’s first round,” he said.

Since Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt is on a general adjournment until Sept 19 and Asma Jehangir, representing Sumaira Malik, is also not available till Sept 23, the court postponed the hearing for a date to be fixed later. It directed the SCBA president to file an application in the meantime to become a party in the case.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2014