KARACHI, Oct 29: The annual election of the Karachi Bar Association for the year 2008 will be held on Dec 15 and the process of nomination papers will begin on Nov 26. This was announced by the KBA General-Secretary, Naeem Qureshi, during a general body meeting held at the Shuhad-i-Punjab Hall on Monday.

He said that the election would be held a week ahead of its routine schedule due to Eidul Azha holidays.

According to the schedule, elections will be held on Dec 15 from 9am to 5pm with a lunch and prayer break from 1pm to 2pm.

The poll will be held under the supervision of the district and sessions judges and members of the Sindh Bar Council, while nomination papers will be received by the office from Nov 26 to Dec 1 up to 4pm.

The nominations will be scrutinized on Dec 3 up to 2pm and a list of candidates will be displayed on the notice board on Dec 4.

As per the schedule, withdrawal of nomination papers will be published on Dec 6 while a final list of the contestants will be displayed the next day.

Candidates’ names will be printed in alphabetical order on ballot papers and any one found violating the prescribed rules and regulations will be disqualified.

Cost of every nomination paper shall be Rs100 to be paid at the time of filing nominations while the fee for office-bearers will be Rs6,000 and for members of the managing committee Rs5,000, which is non-refundable.

Meanwhile, the KBA office-bearer said that a joint meeting of the KBA leaders, district and sessions judges, officials of the election commission was held on Oct 27 in the Sindh High Court and it was decided that the old barracks in the City Courts would be handed over to the association for the extension of the bar room.

He said that the capacity of the existing bar room was not enough for the increasing number of lawyers.

The KBA office-bearer said that the existing bar room was established in 1973 when the number of KBA members was around 900 while at present the number had reached around ten thousand.