HYDERABAD, Feb 19: The president and the secretary of Hyderabad District Bar Association (HDBA) on Monday dismissed apprehensions of some lawyers they called "non-practising" that the sessions’ court building would be converted into a university or handed over to builders’ mafia on completion of renovation work..

The sessions’ courts have been moved into the civil courts’ building and will remain there until the renovation work completes after six months.

The historic sessions court building, spread over 26,524 square feet, was built around 1843, initially as the offices for Captain Deborny, the first collector of the area, whose jurisdiction stretched over Mirpurkhas and Hyderabad divisions. The offices of judiciary were moved into the building later on.

The bar office-bearers said that the building was being repaired and renovated under Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded Access to Justice Programme and the sessions’ court and additional sessions’ courts would resume working in the same building within six months.

HDBA President Abdul Aziz Sheikh said that the building’s grandeur and elegance would be preserved and said that he had got assurance from the sessions’ judge.

"The defeated non-practising lawyers are trying to get political gains out of the issue and only want to sow doubts in the lawyers’ minds to gain cheap publicity," said Noorul Haq Qureshi after attending the bar’s general body meeting on the issue.

Mr Qureshi who has been re-elected as bar secretary said that he had seen the renovation plan costing Rs450 million. The bar representatives had held several meetings in Karachi with high court and sessions court judges as well as project director Jamil Raza Zaidi on Saturday to get assurance that the sessions courts would resume work in the same building after six months, he said.

After the renovation work all the courts would have digital display boards showing lists of cases and other relevant information about day to day proceedings. The ABD-funded projects in Sindh were being supervised by a justice committee, he said and added that an information technology section would also be set up in the building.

Some bar members had raised objections to moving sessions’ courts to the civil courts building and complained that they had not been taken into confidence over the issue.