KARACHI, Nov 7: A number of Bar representatives from Sindh warned against any attempt to foist a president on the Supreme Court Bar Association in place of the duly-elected Muneer A. Malik.

Addressing a press conference in the Sindh High Court cafeteria, they said according to the latest reports from Islamabad, all 231 votes cast at the Karachi polling station in the October 31 SCBA elections were sought to be excluded from the count on the ground that the ballot papers were signed and stamped by Sindh High Court Bar Association Secretary Moin Azhar Siddiqui instead of SHCBA President M. Ilyas Khan, the SCBA presiding and returning officer for the Sindh capital. (Later on Tuesday, the Pakistan Bar Council upheld the election of Muneer A. Malik and other office-bearers and declared as illegal the notification issued by former SCBA president Malik Mohammad Qayyum.)

They claimed that ballots at Lahore were also signed by Lahore High Court Bar Association Vice-President Rana Zahid Mahmood instead of LHCBA President Mian Israrul Haq. The Lahore votes were equally irregular and liable to be excluded from the count for the same reason.

They said it was Sindh’s turn to hold the office of the SCBA president and it would be highly anomalous if the votes cast at Karachi were excluded.