ISLAMABAD, Nov 13: The rules committee of the Pakistan Bar Council has recommended punishment for lawyers, provincial bar councils and bar associations for defying PBC’s rulings.

The committee proposed some amendments to the Pakistan Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules, 1976, on Thursday which would bar any lawyer or a forum of lawyers from giving a call for strike or protest at the national level without the council’s approval.

According to sources, the committee unanimously recommended insertion of a rule stating: “Non-observance or defiance of decisions and instructions of the PBC by any bar council, association or member of the bar shall be deemed to be gross professional misconduct.” PBC member Pervaiz Inayat Malik presided over the meeting.

Other amendments, if adopted, will authorise the PBC to frame rules for recognising, de-recognising and functioning of the Supreme Court Bar Association and for removing any office-bearer of a provincial bar council or bar association for professional misconduct.

“These recommendations will be placed before a full house of the PBC on Nov 29,” a member of the committee said.

Former SCBA chief Tariq Mehmood alleged that the measures aimed at punishing the bar councils or associations that had cancelled the membership and banned the entry of Law Minister Farooq H. Naek and Attorney-General Sardar Mohammad Latif Khan Khosa, who is also the chairman of the PBC, into their premises for conspiring against the lawyers’ movement.