LAHORE, March 10: The Punjab Bar Council has lifted the 'financial emergency' enforced about a month ago, consequent to improvement in it's accounts.
The council has received Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi's Rs6 million grant-in-aid, but the differences between PBC vice-chairperson Tanvir Randhawa and executive committee chairperson Pervaiz Inayat Malik were seemingly developing into a dispute over the constitution of various sub-committees.
Differences between the two office-bearers surfaced soon after the PBC elections on Dec 31 last year. The situation aggravated when Pervaiz Inayat Malik questioned the authority of the outgoing body for 'over spending' the council funds towards the fag end of its tenure.
Mr Malik enforced 'financial emergency' in the PBC on Feb 5, 2004, pleading that the council's funds had so depleted as to make it difficult even to disburse staff salaries.
The step was brought into question on the ground that all financial powers vested with the vice-chairperson of the council and that the executive committee's chairperson was stepping beyond his authority.
No word about the 'emergency' was heard for about a month but Mr Malik again jumped into the fray on Wednesday by declaring that it stood lifted. He said that because of his steps to control expenditure, particularly on account of the travel allowance of members, the council's funds had started showing a marked improvement.
According to him, the fund now had Rs2,785,218 in balance. Mr Malik was also critical of the performance of the membership renewal section and said he had been receiving many complaints in this regard. He alleged that vice-chairperson Tanvir Randhawa was not cooperating for the constitution of various committees and sub-committees of the council.
According to him, 50 per cent of the members were to be nominated by the vice-chairperson. Mr Malik said he had now written a letter to Mr Randhawa asking him to complete nominations within this week failing which he would be obliged to call a general body meeting.
Mr Randhawa told Dawn by telephone that it was Mr Malik who was not extending cooperation. He said he had been coming to Lahore daily for the last month but Mr Malik did not turn up for a meeting to set up the committees.
The PBC vice-chairperson said he would again go to Lahore on Thursday (today) to finalize nominations for committees. "If Mr Pervaiz Inayat Malik again failed to turn up, I will call an extraordinary session of the general house to expose him", Mr Randhawa added.