LAHORE, Oct 11: Office-bearers of the Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Sialkot bar associations have said that Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) had no authority to suspend or cancel the licences of lawyers and Attorney-General Sardar Latif Khan Khosa and some council members were trying to pressurise the lawyers and sabotage their movement for restoration of judiciary.

Addressing a press conference at Aiwan-i-Adal here on Saturday, Lahore Bar Association (LBA) president Manzur Qadir, secretary-general Latif Seraa, Multan High Court Bar Association president Mahmood Ashraf, secretary Rana Naveed, Faisalabad Bar Association president Nasir Ali Goraya, secretary Farrukh Gulzar Awan and Sialkot Bar Association president Arshad Baggoo said that the PBC had adopted resolution for continuing the movement for the restoration of deposed judges in March but a handful of its members supporting the Pakistan People’s Party, who were even arrested during the movement, had changed their stance and started supporting Chief Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar.

They said that powers of the PBC to cancel the licences of the lawyers had been withdrawn through an amendment to the law proposed by former attorney-general Malik Muhammad Qayyum but the members opposed to the lawyers movement continued to use the platform for issuing notices in this regard.

The PBC could issue notices only to the Supreme Court lawyers but notices were being issued even to lawyers who were not registered for practicing in the apex court. — Reporter