PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has suspended a notification of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council (KPBC), requiring clearance of the council dues up to Dec 31, 2025, to stand eligible to contest bar association polls in the province.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Farah Jamshed also suspended an order issued by the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on April 21, upholding that rule, and its letter of April 25, notifying its impugned decision.

It declared that in light of suspension of the impugned decisions of the KPBC and PBC, a voter as defined in the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973, and KP Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Rules, 2010, should be entitled to cast his vote in the forthcoming elections of the district and tehsil bar associations, scheduled for May 6.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Kamran Khan and several other lawyers challenging the impugned notification of Dec 23, 2025 and subsequent decision of the PBC of April 21 and its letter of April 24.

The petitioners sought declaration of the court that the impugned notification of Dec 23 and PBC’s order and letter were illegal and of no legal effect.

Advocates Shumail Ahmad Butt, Yasir Khattak, Mubashir Manzoor, Alam Khan Adenzai, Mohammad Nawaz Khan and Noroz Khan appeared for the petitioners and said that the petitioners were active members of the district as well as Peshawar High Court Bar Association and had they right to vote in elections of bar associations.

They said that through the impugned notification of Dec 23, several hundred voters were disenfranchised.

The lawyers said that the definition of a voter was given in Section 2(O) of the Act as well as Rule 2(o) of the Rules.

They added that those provisions provided that every advocate enrolled as a member of a bar association or bar council had the right to cast a vote, with only restriction being that an advocate who was a defaulter in payment of dues to the respective bar association or council for a period exceeding six months should not be entitled to vote.

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

They contended that the impugned notification nullified an advocate’s right to exercise his franchise, as envisaged by the Act and the 2010 Rules.

The lawyers argued after amendments made in Section 55 of the Act in 2018, the provincial bar council no longer had the mandate to frame rules governing election matters of bar councils and bar associations.

They pointed out that the appeal of the petitioners were turned down by the PBC through the impugned order on March 21 and subsequently the respondents including the KPBC scheduled elections for the respective district and tehsil bar associations to be held on May 6.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2026