LAHORE, Sept 5: Several Lahore High Court (LHC) employees clashed with four lawyers when the latter allegedly beat up a writ branch clerk here on Friday.

Eyewitnesses said the lawyers, Mumtaz Sindhu, Fayyaz Mehr, Jamil Khan and Zahid Nawaz Cheema, had beaten up the clerk, Abid, when he refused to show them a case file. Some LHC employees came to the help of their colleague and a scuffle ensued.

Mr Abid, whose face was bruised during the scuffle, was taken to a hospital nearby while LHC Registrar Maqsoodul Hasan took the four lawyers to the room of additional registrar for resolution of the matter. He also summoned the police for security reasons.

On being informed of the incident, LHCBA president Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari rushed to the room where the four lawyers were sitting with the registrar and other LHC officials. The security officials tried to stop him from entering the room. However, Mr Ansari stormed into the room along with his companions, accused the registrar of keeping the lawyers in illegal confinement and brought them back to the LHCBA office.

Some 100 LHCBA members later went to the CJ office to register their protest over what they called an hour-long “confinement” of their colleagues. The CJ had gone to the committee room during a recess. The LHCBA members decided to meet him and narrate to him their version of the incident.

The situation grew tense when Chief Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry refused to see Mr Ansari.

When the CJ came out of the committee room, the lawyers who had gathered outside, started walking behind him. While entering his private chamber, the CJ instructed the security guards to keep the crowd away.

The lawyers arrived in front of the CJ chamber and had a brawl with the LHC registrar and the chief security officer who tried to disperse them. The Pakistan Bar Council executive committee’s chairman, Kazim Khan, requested the registrar to talk to the

CJ on the issue and get the matter resolved.

Mr Ansari alleged that the CJ had told him to leave the committee room and refused to talk to him.

Things took an ugly turn when lawyers marched to the old block of LHC where about 150 clerks had assembled during lawyers’ stay outside the CJ chamber. Both the groups started raising slogans against each other.

The lawyers rushed towards the clerks who dispersed when they saw the lawyers coming towards them. The chief security officer however managed to control the situation.

Feeling aggrieved by CJ’s reaction, the LHCBA adopted a resolution against him. The lawyers also resolved to boycott CJ’s court and announced that their protest would continue unless their grievances were redressed. The lawyers demanded that an FIR should be lodged against the officials who had allegedly kept the four lawyers in illegal confinement.

A full-house meeting of the LHCBA has been convened to discuss the incident on Sept 8.