HYDERABAD, Jan 19: Most senior lawyers feel that the ‘sleeping’ and non-practising members of their community unduly hold the deciding influence in the district bar association elections scheduled for Saturday and urged the Sindh Bar Council (SBC) to review its rules and regulations on licensing.

Hassan Mehmood Baig, a

civil lawyer, told Dawn on Friday that the lawyers who would not be seen in courts throughout the year would throng the courts on the polling day with the power to help whoever they liked win rendering senior lawyers’ opinion meaningless.

"A massive exercise needs to be carried out to rectify the rot that has set in over time," he suggested and said that a trust should be created to groom junior lawyers.

"No elected body of Hyderabad District Bar Association (HDBA) has so far made any substantial progress towards contributing to the welfare of their colleagues. The lawyers’ housing scheme has not seen the light of the day for a long time while the elected office-bearers always seem least concerned to play their role," he said.

Hidayatullah Abbasi, a well-known criminal lawyer, said that "I am quite disappointed. Sindh Bar Council (SBC) never interferes in the HDBA where juniors are gaining strength while the bar is losing its efficiency. The office-bearers who just need votes do not respect their seniors’ opinions," he said.

He said that the SBC did not even take notice of bogus voters’ entry into voters’ lists last year and the fact that even the sitting HDBA officials became members of election committee.

Syed Madad Ali Shah, a noted criminal lawyer, also voiced disappointment over the bar’s affairs and described the practice of annual elections as "a game of contesting parties".

"The candidates know home addresses of sleeping lawyers who are brought to court on the polling day but the SBC is always interested in getting Rs1,800 benevolent fund and renewal fee and is least bothered to check whether the lawyers whose licenses are being renewed are genuinely practicing," Mr Shah said.

He said that instead of squandering money on holding lavish annual dinners the bar should extend monetary help to its needy members and slammed the discouragement of juniors who were not appointed legal advisers by government or semi government organisations.

He said that nothing had been done for the lawyers’ welfare. "I know of cases in which the neighbours arranged for the burial and funeral of lawyers while our bar keeps hosting annual dinners and parties for judges," he regretted.

Defending the bar’s affairs, Hyderabad District Bar Association President Chaudhry Bashir Gujjar said that the bar had sincerely pursued the housing scheme issue but no government was interested in allotting them land.

"Even our own colleagues refused to get plots when land was allotted to them by late Z. A. Bhutto in Shoro Goth and again when Benazir Bhutto-led PPP government announced plots for us in Gulshan-i-Shahbaz scheme. They rejected the offers saying that no one will go to jungle," he said.

He said that he had taken up the matter with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at a convention in Islamabad and reminded him of his predecessor Mir Zafarullah Jamali’s announcement of 500 acres of land for lawyers but nothing happened.

He admitted that the presence of sleeping members (advocates) was a genuine issue and said that only the Sindh Bar Council could tackle it by refusing to renew their licenses and link the renewal with practice.