OKARA, June 23: Reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is the lawyers’ first priority and formation of a strategy to provide justice to people the second, Aitzaz Ahsan told lawyers gathered here on Saturday to welcome the chief justice.

Addressing them at the Okara Bar, Ahsan said lawyers were grateful to the people for their generous support.

The chief justice’s lawyer Ali Ahmad Kurd said that generals would not be able to rule the country with the help of emergencies or martial laws after Justice Chaudhry’s no to their demands on March 9.

“We will never accept the decision of a supreme court that is B team of army generals.

Instead, we will accept the decision of a supreme court that is A team of the people of Pakistan,” Supreme Court Bar Association President Munir A Malik told the gathering.

Lawyers Sardar Latif Khosa, Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari, Ahmad Awais, Justice Fakhrunnisa Khokhar (retired), Okara District Bar Association President Malik Maqbool Shakir and Secretary Sagheer Harni also addressed the gathering.

The Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal had established welcome camps at the city’s entrance. PML-N activists were more visible.

Local cable operators did not air TV channels covering the chief justice’s rally (in the news bulletins) from 7pm to 8:30pm, allegedly under pressure from government authorities. Earlier in the morning, police uprooted several welcome camps set up by the PPP and PML-N.