KARACHI, Feb 11: The Sindh Bar Council meeting scheduled for Feb 15 for election of a new vice-chairman has no legal sanction as a vice-chairman has already been elected, 23 SBC members said on Wednesday.

In a letter addressed to the advocate-general in his capacity as ex officio chairman of the bar council, the members said Advocates Mahmudul Hasan and Ali Mohammad Dahiri were elected vice-chairman and executive committee chairman, respectively, by a meeting held on Jan 30. The meeting also elected new chairmen for 15 committees of the council. (Thirteen SBC members, however, said in a joint statement recently that the Jan 30 meeting had been put off by the chairman and a meeting adjourned by the chairman could not be called into session by any member/s and that the new-office-bearers would be elected on Feb 15 as scheduled by the AG).

Advocates Hasan, Dahiri and 21 other members said in their letter that the Jan 30 meeting had been summoned to ensure compliance with the requirements of Section 6(4) of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act and it could not have been cancelled, more so in view of Rule 9 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules. A meeting scheduled by the chairman could only be put off if more than 50 per cent of the members express their desire in writing for such postponement. Besides, the members had no notice of the postponement and they duly met on schedule. They waited for the AG for 30 minutes before going ahead with the agenda. No matter settled by the council could be reopened within three months of the decision and the council was going to meet at Sukkur on March 28 under the new vice-chairman, the letter said.