Islamabad - The Islamabad Bar Council (IBC), which is regulatory authority for lawyers in the federal capital, has decided to verify the educational qualifications as well as professional certificates of 3,700 lawyers of Islamabad.
During this verification process, if the lawyers fail to prove their qualifications correct and genuine then they will have to face registration of first information report (FIR), disciplinary actions and even one year imprisonment.
Talking to The Nation here on Sunday, Vice Chairman IBC Shoaib Shaheen Advocate that the process of verification educational certificates of lawyers practicing in the capital’s sessions courts, special courts, tribunals and at Islamabad High Court (IHC) would be started in September. He expressed his hope that they would be succeeded to complete their work in this connection within two months.
The vice chairman IBC told that now the enrolment of new lawyers would be made after the verification of their degrees. He also made it clear that this operation would be carried out without any discrimination and they would work in this regard without keeping in view the political affiliation of any lawyer.
“We are determined to clear the legal community from all kinds of black sheep since they are earning a bad name for the whole fraternity,” expressed the resolution by the IBC vice chairman. He further made it clear that they would not only cancel the membership of such lawyers whose educational certificates were found forged but they would also register FIRs against such criminal people besides taking disciplinary action them.
In the past, the Punjab Bar Council served as a regulatory authority for Islamabad-based lawyers and after the establishment of the IHC in 2012, Islamabad Bar Association (IBA) President Syed Javed Akbar initiated a process for verifying the degrees of lawyers but could not complete this task during his one-year term in office. Some lawyers believe that fake degree holders play a role during the elections of bar associations so a number of lawyers do not want the process of verification to be started.
However, the incumbent vice chairman of IBC has expressed this steadfastness in this regard, saying that since five years tenure of body end in 2020, they would be able to complete the task of verifying degrees.