LAHORE, Nov 18: As many as 158 members of the four provincial bar councils go to polls on Saturday (today) to elect a 22-member general council of the Pakistan Bar Council for the next five-year term. The number of candidates is 30. Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan will supervise election as the returning officer. Advocates-general will conduct elections in provinces between 9am and 3pm.

There are 20 aspirants for 11 seats from the Punjab. Those in run for six seats from Sindh are seven in number. Five candidates are in the contest for four seats allocated to the NWFP in the PBC and there is a straight contest for one seat from Balochistan.

This is the first time that the PBC general council will have 22 members as against 20 in the outgoing body set up in 1973 to regulate professional matters of the legal community. The new body is the product of the amended Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act which allocated two more seats to the NWFP. The amended law also confined the election to provinces as against the past practice under which the whole of the country was one single constituency and candidates were allowed to secure votes from other provinces as well.

As for the Punjab, 20 lawyers are in run for 11 seats. Of them, Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari, the sitting vice-chairman, Hamid Khan, Kazim Khan, Chaudhry Ashraf Wahla, Raja Mahmood Akhtar, Mian Abdul Quddoos and Senator Sardar Lateef Khosa are the sitting members of the Pakistan Bar Council.

Others in the run are Dr Khalid Ranjha, Ramzan Chaudhry, Pervez Inayat Malik, Mian Israrul Haq, Pir Kalim Khurshid, Ahsan Bhoon, Nasrullah Warraich and Amin Javed from Lahore, Raja Shafqat Abbasi and Syed Kalb-i-Hasan from Rawalpindi, Sardar Mazhar Khan and Dil Mohammad Alizai from Muzaffargarh and Mirza Aziz Akbar Baig from Multan.

The candidates for six seats from Sindh include Rashid A. Razvi, a former judge of the Sindh High Court, Farooq A. Naik, Imdad Ali Awan, Yasin Azad, Qazi Abdur Rahim and Yusuf Leghari.

Qazi Anwar, Fazle Haq Abbasi, Abdul Hakeem Kundi, Faizur Rehman and Nasrullah Khan are the five candidates for four seats from the NWFP.

As for Balochistan, Ali Ahmad Kurd and Amanullan Kanrani are in a straight contest for one seat.