KARACHI, Nov 26: The 59th annual elections of the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) are being held here on Saturday (today) on the premises of the Sindh High Court with one-to-one contests on the top slots of president and honorary secretary.

Over 1,400 out of the total 1,851 SHCBA members are to exercise their right of vote to elect their body.

Anwar Mansoor Khan — a former SHC judge and former Sindh Advocate General, who lost the last election of the SHCBA president — and Ghulam Qadir Jatoi are vying for the slot of the president.

Mr Jatoi, who is also counsel in a petition seeking re-polling of the Supreme Court Bar Association in Sindh, is the chairman of Islamic Lawyers Movement.

Advocate Abid S. Zuberi, who won the office of honorary secretary with 678 votes in the last SHCBA election, and Nadeem Qureshi are contesting for the post of the honorary secretary.

Besides, five candidates — Abdul Jabbar Qureshi, Adnan Ahmed, Ashiq Ali Anwar Rana, S.M. Gharib Nawaz Daccawal and Yousuf Maulvi — are in the run for the post of vice president.

Akhlaq Ahmed Khan, Azra Saeed and Yousuf Iqbal are contesting for the post of honorary treasurer and three others — Amir Aziz Khan, Mirza Sarfraz Ahmed and Mrs Saify Ali Khan — are in the run for the post of honorary joint secretary.

The candidates for the post of member managing committee are: Abida Parveen Channar, Ahmed Khan Bugti, Ameeruddin Meo, Azizuddin Qureshi, Fareed Ahmed A. Dayo, Habib Ahmad, Javed Hasan Malik, Khalid Mahmood Dhoon, Manzoor Ahmed, Masood Ahmed Siddiqui, Muhammad Arshad Khan Jadoon, Muhammad Hasan Akber, Muhammed Mushaffy Ahmed, Muhammad Safdar, Naseem Javid, Perveen Pervaiz, Razia Sultana, Saeeda Siddiqui, Sajjad A. Khan, Shaukat Ali Shaikh and Tariq Mahmood Khawaja.

Present SHCBA president Rasheed A Razvi, who was elected SHCBA chief for a third consecutive term in the previous annual election, had defeated Anwar Mansoor Khan by getting 701 votes out of total 1,302 votes cast.

Mr Razvi while addressing the annual dinner for the SHCBA members has said that the term of the outgoing body had been positive in the sense that some of the gains of the historic movement for the independence of the judiciary and the restoration of the Constitution had been consolidated, but there still remained formidable obstacles to the independence. “For instance, the court’s right to judicial review and judicial activism are under attack by the executive on the allegation that the court are crossing judicial boundaries and encroaching on the sphere of the executive and the legislature.”

The SHCBA chief also said that it was unfortunate that vacancies remained to be filled at virtually all levels of the judiciary and despite all the possible assistance that the legal fraternity rendered the backlog of cases still threatened to split the justice delivery system at its seams. “The delay in the appointment of new judges at the high court level and the subordinate judiciary has frustrated the clearing of the dockets,” he added.