ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Wednesday accused Law Minister Barrister Farogh Nasim of misconduct and referred his matter to the disciplinary committee headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Supreme Court.

According to the PBC Executive Committee, a lawyer after assuming public office is duty-bound to get his practising licence suspended from the PBC, but Barrister Nasim didn’t follow this practice.

Subsequently, the PBC itself suspended Barrister Nasim’s licence. However, he challenged the suspension before the attorney general.

Suspension of Farogh Nasim’s licence has become the root cause of row

The attorney general restored the licence of the minister. The PBC challenged the attorney general’s decision before the Supreme Court, which referred the matter to the PBC.

The PBC Executive Committee said that despite issuing five show-cause notices to Barrister Nasim, he did not file a reply and even termed the show-cause notices illegal. Subsequently, the committee declared that the reply of Barrister Nasim was not satisfactory and accused him of misconduct.

The executive committee, after suspending the licence of Barrister Nasim, referred the matter to the disciplinary committee. Justice Bandial is the chairman of the PBC disciplinary committee that can revoke the licence of a lawyer for misconduct.

Meanwhile, the PBC also criticised recent appointments of law officers in high courts and the Supreme Court and termed them “pre-poll rigging” ahead of the annual election of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

The law ministry had on Oct 8, 2019, appointed about two dozen additional, deputy and assistant attorneys general through a notification.

According to a press release issued by the PBC, “new appointments of advocates as law officers and removal of many of the serving law officers, at this juncture when the process of election of Supreme Court Bar Association has reached an advance stage, a a motivated attempt on the part of the government to influence the election and thus it amounts to pre-poll rigging which the legal fraternity strongly condemns and disapproves”.

The SCBA elections are scheduled to be held in the last week of the current month.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2019