PESHAWAR, March 13: The NWFP Bar Council has suspended the membership of six lawyers for supporting what it called the unconstitutional action of Gen Pervez Musharraf against the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Speaking at a join conference here at the Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, Fazal Tawab, vice-president of the council, and Badiuzzaman Khan, chairman of its executive committee, condemned the president’s move of filing a reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

They said the case of the lawyers whose membership had been suspended had been forwarded to the disciplinary committee of the bar council for an action against them.

The lawyers facing the action were Justice (retd) Mohammad Azam Khan, Muazzam Butt, Habib Qureshi, Mohammad Intikhab Alam of Chamkani, Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif and Aminurrehman.

The bar council leaders said they had conveyed to the Peshawar High Court Bar Association and all district bar associations to withdraw all facilities from the suspended lawyers “for betraying their community which was struggling for the rule of the law in the country”.

They alleged that Gen Pervez Musharraf, who had taken his oath under the 1973 Constitution, had abrogated it and betrayed the nation. They said that the summoning of the Chief Justice to the Army House was a condemnable act. They said the restoration of people’s confidence in the judiciary was the prime duty of the lawyers’ community.

They alleged that the rulers were bent upon turning the country into a garrison and create a fake democratic system which had miserably failed to deliver the goods.