LAHORE, Nov 3: The controversy arising out of the recently-held Supreme Court Bar Association elections on Friday took a new turn when secretary Ali Akbar Qureshi and vice-president Mian Zakaur Rehman of the outgoing body issued a notification ratifying the results and declaring that Munir A Malik stood elected as new president of the SCBA.

“The SCBA, headed by Justice Malik Muhammad Qayyum (retired), had ceased to exist the day the elections of the new leadership were held on Oct 31”, the two senior lawyers told a news conference.

They said the secretary of the outgoing body was issuing the notification in accordance with the SCBA rules as the former president had failed to do so as a mandatory duty.

According to the notification, Mr Malik was elected by a margin of four votes as he secured 595 votes against 591 polled to Raja Haq Nawaz. The third candidate, Chaudhry Muhammad Jameel, bagged 76 votes.

The former SCBA leaders said the rules had no provision for a returning officer for the elections. The rules, they said, provided for the appointment of an election committee to supervise polling which was not constituted in violation of the regulations. The election committee had a limited purpose and it also ceased to exist once the electoral exercise was complete.

Similarly, they said the rules did not have a provision for the official count and recount of the vote and if the former president, who neither survived beyond Oct 31 nor held the office of the returning officer, was thinking in such terms, it would be a gross violation of the rules.

Mr Qureshi said the election committee chairman was required to announce the results soon after the vote count was completed. Since this was not done and the rules allowed the secretary to issue a notification, the matter could not be allowed to linger on. He also said the rules provided for consolidating the results, but there was no provision for a recount.

The officials said as members of the outgoing team and senior lawyers, they would not allow any irregularity to prevail over the election results.

In reply to a question, Mr Qureshi said in case of a dispute an appeal could be filed with the Pakistan Bar Council which was a supervisory statutory apex body of lawyers to resolve all disputed matters.

According to the notification, Imranul Haq from Balochistan, Abdul Lateef Yousufzai from the NWFP, Khwaja Naveed Ahmad from Sindh and Sahibzada Anwar Hameed from Punjab were the vice-presidents of the SCBA.