RAWALPINDI, March 16: District courts gave a deserted look here on Friday as lawyers continued their boycott of court proceedings in protest against the “suspension” of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. Even the bar association premises and the chambers of the lawyers seemed abandoned as majority of the lawyers had left the courts early in the morning to participate in the protest in Islamabad.

The District Bar Association, in its meeting on Thursday, had decided to take part in the protest outside the Supreme Court building on the occasion of hearing of the CJ’s case by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on Friday.

The ongoing protest by the lawyers has made the judges virtually non-functional as a majority of the litigants shied away from appearing in the court without their legal aides. Most of the judges were found busy in disposing of the pending file work.