LAHORE, Nov 15: Senior lawyers from Sindh and the NWFP are least interested in elections to the 22-member general council of the Pakistan Bar Council for the next five-year term. The elections are to be held on Nov 19 by an electorate comprising 158 members of the four provincial bar councils. As many as 30 senior lawyers are in the run.
Attorney-general Makhdoom Ali Khan, who is the ex-officio chairperson, is to supervise elections in his capacity as the returning officer. Advocates-general will conduct elections in the provinces.
Sindh has six seats in the PBC and only seven people shown interest in the election. Five candidates are in the run for four seats allocated to the NWFP. Contrary to this, 20 are in the run for 11 seats from the Punjab and there is a straight contest for one seat from Balochistan.
This is the first time that the PBC general council will have a 22-member house as against 20 members in the outgoing body set up in 1973 to regulate professional matters of the legal community. The new body is the product of the amended Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act which allocated two more seats to the NWFP. The amended law also confined the election to provinces as against the past practice under which the entire country was one single constituency and candidates were allowed to secure votes from other provinces as well.
As for the Punjab, aspirants Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari, the sitting vice-chairperson, Hamid Khan, Mohammad Kazim Khan, Chaudhry Mohammad Ashraf Wahla, Raja Mahmood Akhtar, Mian Abdul Quddoos and Senator Sardar Mohammad Lateef Khan Khosa are sitting PBC members.
Others in the run are Dr Khalid Ranjha, Mohammad Ramzan Chaudhry, Pervez Inayat Malik, Mian Israrul Haq, Pir Syed Kaleem Ahmad Khursheed, Mohammad Ahsan Bhoon, Mohammad Nasrullah Warraich and Mohammad Amin Javed from Lahore, Raja Shafqat Ahmad Abbasi and Syed Kalb-i-Hasan from Rawalpindi, Sardar Mazhar Ahmad Khan and Dil Mohammad Alizai from Muzaffargarh and Mirza Aziz Akbar Baig from Multan. There are seven candidates for six seats from Sindh.