OUR STAFF REPORTER LAHORE - Senior lawyers including the Lahore High Court Bar Association president have demanded a disciplinary action against the presiding officer, whose reply was sought for being absent from the court during cross-examination in a case last Monday. LHC additional member inspection team (MIT-II) Irfan Ahmad Saeed paid a 'surprise visit to an accountability court No 2 and found that the presiding officer was not present in the court when cross-examination was in process in a case against the former Haj director. As a result, Irfan had sought a reply from Ahmad Nawaz Ranjha for being absent from the court However, the lawyers observed that the presence of a presiding officer at the time of statements of an accused or witnesses of important cases and references is a must. They added that .a case creates a bad impression if someone other than the presiding officer records the statement of an accused. Commenting on the matter, LHCBA President Advocate Asghar Ali Gill said that if the judge himself was not recording the statement of the witness in the said case as per law, it was a fault on the part of the judge. Later, senior lawyer Abdul Latif Hanjra said that an action must be taken against the judges who violate rules and regulations. But, he said, nobody knew what the additional MIT-II reported to his boss. Hanjra said that a thorough probe into the matter must be held especially in the very important reference going on in the accountability court No-2. Most of the lawyers were of the view that the authorities concerned must take disciplinary action against the presiding officer as per law if he himself was not writing the statement of witness Col (r) Hafiz Muhammad Shafique in the case. On the other hand, MIT officials, on the condition of anonymity, revealed that the surprise visit was a routine process, as the MIT section had accelerated the process of checking the performance of judges in Punjab. Reportedly, defence lawyer Malik Amjad Pervez was busy in the cross examination on the statement of prosecution witness while the judge was sitting in his chamber during the hearing of a reference of illegal allotment of costly land of GHQ.