LAHORE, June 18: The Lahore High Court refused on Wednesday to suspend the operation of the LHC Bar Association’s last week resolution through which the membership of Punjab Bar Council vice-chairman Arif Chaudhry was cancelled.
Justice Tassadaq Hussain Jilani issued a notice to LHCBA president Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari for June 24 on the petition of Arif Chaudhry who had pleaded to declare the impugned resolution as non-maintainable and void.
Arif Chaudhry’s membership was cancelled by the LHCBA through a resolution for having invited the provincial chief minister to a Bar gathering on May 30 in violation of the decision of the lawyers’ Joint Action Committee to socially boycott the government officials till the LFO issued was resolved by parliament.
The petitioner’s request to suspend the operation of the resolution till the next date of hearing was turned down by the court, observing that no stay could be granted without hearing the respondent.
The court further directed the petitioner to append the copy of the resolution with the petition by the next date of hearing.
Mr Chaudhry argued in his petition that the LHCBA president convened the general house meeting on June 13. Mr Ansari allegedly pronounced the expulsion of Mr Chaudhry from the LHCBA’s membership without giving him any show-cause notice or serving the chargesheet on him.
He claimed that the resolution for the cancellation of his membership could not be tabled without one-third Bar members’ support. A two-thirds majority was required for his expulsion from the LHCBA membership under Section 15 of the memorandum of association of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act.
“The LHCBA president lacked the jurisdiction to exercise his authority in this regard since only a prescribed procedure for the revocation of the Bar membership had to be followed. I was granted the life membership of the LHCBA during 1994 which could not be revoked in a manner adopted by Mr Ansari,” he argued.
Mr Chaudhry argued that he was denied of his legal right to be heard by the respondents ahead of the resolution while the decision with regard to his membership’s cancellation had to be based on strong evidence which was missing.
Mr Chaudhry alleged that the LHCBA president was using the Bar platform to execute the political agenda of a religious party to malign the political opponents of that party. According to the petitioner, Mr Ansari invited many politicians to the Bar without consulting anyone. This practice of the LHCBA president proved to be the bone of contention between Mr Ansari and the petitioner as the latter asked the former to refrain from inviting the politicians.
“I being the vice-chairman of PBC, which is the provincial regulatory body of the bar associations, tried to convince the LHCBA president in this regard but to no avail. Rather he nurtured grudge against me and started a malicious campaign against me alleging that I was working for the establishment”.
He claimed that he had contacted the provincial chief minister for mobilizing the government machinery with regard to the Bar development projects. The provincial chief minister promised to approve a grant of Rs2 million for the construction of PBC’s building.
The petitioner met the chief minister on May 2 and presented him a six-point Bar welfare programme to him besides extending an invitation for a dinner which was accepted.
The LHCBA president, who was not authorized to interfere in the PBC matters, started issuing sweeping statements against the petitioner besides issuing condemnation resolutions without issuing notice to him which finally gained the form of a unilateral general house proceedings against him on June 13.