PESHAWAR, July 12: The Peshawar High Court Bar Association on Tuesday requested the NWFP Assembly to delay the adoption the controversial Hasba Bill 2005 by a day so that the association could come up with its suggestions for improvement in the draft. An emergency meeting of the association, chaired by the Bar’s president Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand, passed a resolution to send a letter to the assembly’s speaker with the request to extend discussion on the Hasba Bill for another day during which the association would put forward concrete proposals to the assembly.

The meeting was convened at the request of Sher Afgan Khattak, a former president of Peshawar District Bar Association, who is a staunch opponent of the proposed law.

The meeting was postponed for Wednesday as most of the members requested the bar’s cabinet to provide them a copy of the controversial Bill so that they could properly deliberate on the issue.

The meeting was addressed by senior advocates including Barrister Zahoorul Haq, Abdul Lateef Afridi, Abdul Rauf Rohaila, Barrister Bacchaa, Barrister Masood Kausar, Hidayatullah Mohamadzai, Ghulam Nabi, Abdul Qadir Khattak, Abdul Samad Khan Zaida, and others.

A visible split emerged among the lawyers community as the members affiliated with Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Ulema-i- Islam (F), the two major component parties of Muttahida Majlis-i- Amal, were supporting the bill claiming that it would not create parallel judicial system. Ghulam Nabi stated that cases under the Hasbah law would be decided by ordinary courts.

Other lawyers stated that the law was apparently supra- constitutional and would result in creation of a parallel judicial system with a chain of the provincial, district and tehsil ombudsmen enjoying wide-ranging powers.

Mr Mohmand sent a letter to the NWFP Assembly speaker Bakht Jehan Khan after the meeting and conveyed him the request of the meeting. He stated that the association strongly felt that members of the PHCBA should make contribution in the shape of concrete proposals by sending it to the members of the assembly.