QUETTA: Differences have cropped up among lawyers of Balochistan over the nomination of a candidate for the post of the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).

The SCBA’s election is scheduled to be held on Oct 25.

Shakeel Panel supported by the late Asma Jahangir group has nominated Ali Ahmed Kurd for the SCBA president’s post. Mr Kurd had held this office also in the past.

A group of senior lawyers, headed by lawyer and human rights activist Mir Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani, has expressed reservations over the nomination of Mr Kurd. Members of the group said that they would not support any candidate in the election.

Addressing a press conference along with Abdul Khair Achakzai, Sardar Tahir Hussain, Jahanzaib Khan Jadoon, Muhammad Afzal Harifal and other lawyers on Friday, Zahoor Shahwani said that lawyers from Lahore and Islamabad had nominated their favourite candidates from Balochistan without taking them into confidence.

“We will not cast our votes for any candidate,” he said, adding “our lawyers are mustering support from other places”.

He recalled that after the SCBA election in 2010 his group’s members had merged their Independent Panel into the Asma Jahangir’s Panel despite the fact that many of their colleagues didn’t vote for Asma Jahangir in that election.

This time around, lawyers from Lahore were attempting to impose their decision upon them by nominating Mr Kurd as presidential candidate, Mr Shahwani said.

Mr Kurd, he said, was a respectful name among lawyers across the country, but he was not a member of Asma Jahangir Panel.

“Despite our utmost efforts to introduce a unanimous candidate, we failed because a group of senior lawyers deliberately ignored in nominating the candidate from Balochistan for the post of SBCA president and other offices,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2018