LAHORE, Sept 17: The Pakistan Bar Council elections, which were scheduled to be held on Oct 1, have been deferred because of the promulgation of the amendments to the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act of 1973 which the National Assembly had recently adopted.

Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan will issue a new election schedule “in due course of time” rescinding the earlier timeframe, which was announced on Aug 30.

The new programme has been necessitated because the amendments made in the law envisage the election of 22 members for the Pakistan Bar Council instead of 20 because two seats have been allocated to the NWFP Bar Council whose members will now elect four members for the apex statutory professional body.

Besides, the change in the act envisions to restrict the electorate to the members of the provincial bar councils who will elect the PBC number under the share of the provincial quota of seats in the apex body. The PBC elections have so for been held with an electorate comprising all members of the provincial bar councils and the whole country was their constituency.

It may be recalled that 37 senior lawyers from all four provinces filed their nominations for the 20-member PBC in accordance with the election schedule which has now been rescinded. Of them, 23 were candidates for 11 seats from the Punjab, seven for six seats from Sindh, three for two seats from the NWFP and four for one seat from Balochistan.

The National Assembly passed during the last week the amended law, which is yet to be enacted because the president has not so far given his assent to it under the constitution.