BAHAWALPUR, Jan 5 Senior lawyers from Bahawalpur and Lodhran have urged the Lahore High Court chief justice to notify the attachment of Lodhran district with LHC's Bahawalpur bench.

At a joint press conference here on Tuesday, Lodhran district bar president Sardar Arshad Khan, LHC (Bahawalpur bench) bar president Muhammad Sharif Bhatti and three Punjab Bar Council members -- Sheikh Abdul Ghaffar, Ahmad Nadeem Arshad and Nasir Joyia -- said for inexpensive and speedy justice, the attachment of Lodhran with Bahawalpur bench was in the larger interest of the 2.5 million population of Lodhran district.

They welcomed the statement of LHC chief justice in this matter and said that it should be implemented at the earliest.

The Lodhran bar chief said that his bar with a membership of 800 had repeatedly passed resolutions to attach the district with local LHC bench. During last month's visit of LHC chief justice, he was again requested to accord the sanction to this proposal.

He said the CJ announced his decision in Multan the other day. He said Bahawalpur was only 12kms from Lodhran and it required hardly 15 minutes to reach the LHC bench here. He claimed that tehsil bar of Kahror Pucca had supported this move while the Dunyapur bar was against it. He said if there was any complication, then the people from the district might be given both options -- either to file their appeals in Multan or Bahawalpur benches.

He dismissed the protest of Multan lawyers in this matter adding that they were not an aggrieved party and the linkage with Bahawalpur was not an economic murder of Multan lawyers.