ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) requested Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa on Monday to take notice of interventions by the Sindh High Court (SHC) into what it called its internal affairs.

In a statement, the PBC emphasised that no high court, especially the SHC, has jurisdiction to create hindrance in the affairs of the regulatory body of lawyers, which has legal mandate to decide matters of provincial/Islamabad bar councils and all bar associations whenever any issue came up.

“It is often observed that PBC’s executive committee orders, which are assailed by the aggrieved persons through civil suit, are being taken up by the SHC or judge in chamber and then [they] pass in­­junctive orders, which are not entertainable in the eye of law due to lack of jurisdiction,” said the PBC statement.

It stated that SHC has no jurisdiction to set aside any order passed by the PBC at Islamabad, adding that the proper forum for that will be the courts of the Islamabad Capital Territory.

Criticises injunctive orders, citing lack of jurisdiction

So any order passed by the SHC would be non-existing and nullity in the eyes of the law, it said. Therefore, the SHC shou­­ld not pass injunctive orders on matters decided by PBC at Islamabad just to please their alleged blue-eyed persons.

Asked about the necessity of issuing such a statement, PBC executive committee chairman Hassan Raza Pasha told Dawn the council had no choice after the SHC suspended an exercise taken up by the committee on a dispute regarding vote count of a candidate who was contes­ting the SCBA elections on Nov 1.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2023