PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has directed the Pakistan Bar Council to decide within 15 days the issue of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council’s move to change the relevant rules, making dues clearance by lawyers up to Dec 31, 2025, eligibility criteria for participating in bar association elections.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Farah Jamshed disposed of pleas against the impugned KPBC decision, observing that not only alternate remedy was available with the petitioners under Section 13(2) of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, which had already been invoked, but the Pakistan Bar Council had also taken cognisance of the matter.

It added that unless the grievances of the petitioners were addressed expeditiously, elections of bar associations for the year 2025-26 should remain postponed.

“It is most appropriate that the lawyers resolve their issues through their elected members. Therefore, this court expects the worthy Pakistan Bar Council, being cognisant of the importance of the matter, to decide the pending issue, or any subsequently raised, at the earliest, but not later than fifteen days from the date of this judgement,” it ruled.

Peshawar High Court disposes of pleas against changes to bar council rules

The bench observed that if the PBC failed to decide the matter within 15 days, it should be deemed to have failed to exercise its appellate jurisdiction, and in such circumstances, the petitioners would be at liberty to approach the appropriate forum of redressal of their grievances.

Four almost identical petitions were filed by Zoya Javed, Kamran Khan, Tauqeer Ahmad and several other advocates against an impugned notification of Dec 23, 2025, and a council’s decision issued on March 7, 2026, about it.

The petitioners requested the court to declare that the notification of Dec 23 and March 7 were illegal. They requested the court to declare that the advocates, who cleared their dues within an extended deadline, remained eligible to vote and contest elections of Peshawar Bar Association.

The elections of the association were scheduled for March 28 but were postponed by the bar council after the high court suspended the impugned notification in its earlier hearing on March 12.

KPBC was represented by its member, Ahmad Farooq Khattak, who objected to the jurisdiction of the high court to entertain the petitions, contending that Bar Councils were not “persons” within the meaning of Article 199 of the Constitution, and therefore their decisions or functions couldn’t be challenged before the Constitutional Court.

He argued that the decision of the KPBC, as well as the impugned notification, had already been challenged before the Pakistan Bar Council under Section 13(2) of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973, by some aggrieved lawyers.

The member emphasised that under Section 13(2) of the Act, any person aggrieved by an order or decision of a Provincial Bar Council may, within 30 days of such order or decision, prefer an appeal to the PBC, whose decision in such appeal should be final.

He produced a letter showing that some persons had already approached the PBC challenging the impugned decision of KPBC and Executive Committee.

Advocates Shumail Ahmad Butt, Mohammad Yasir Khattak, Lajbar Khan Khalil, Arshad Ali Nowsherwi and Mubashir Manzoor appeared for the petitioners and said that through the impugned notification of Dec 23, several hundred voters were disenfranchised.

They said that under the Act and the rules framed thereunder, the eligibility of an advocate to cast his vote was a fundamental right.

The counsel said that depriving any advocate of the right to vote on grounds not recognised by the Act was beyond the jurisdiction of respondent KPBC.

They said that through the impugned notification of Dec 23, amendment was introduced in Rule 94 of the 2010 rules requiring clearance of bar council dues up to Dec 31, 2025, for electoral eligibility.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2026