ISLAMABAD-The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Tuesday clarified that it was working despite the strike called by the lawyers’ body following the registration of cases against the lawyers who barged into the high court a day earlier.
An IHC spokesperson said in a statement that the cause list of today’s cases was cancelled after different lawyers bodies went on strike. He clarified that now the high court and all the district courts are functional. He said that it has been wrongly reported in some sections of the press that the Islamabad High Court and district courts have been closed indefinitely by the court administration. The spokesperson stated that it is clarified that Islamabad Bar Council, Islamabad High Court Bar Association and District Bar Association Islamabad had announced a strike. “Therefore in order to avoid inconvenience to the general public and lawyers, the cause lists were cancelled for one day. However the Islamabad High Court and District Courts are fully functional now and carrying out regular court work, to serve the public,” said the IHC spokesperson. He added that the IHC Chief Justice and all the other judges are performing their functions and are present in their respective chambers.
Later, the IHC also issued contempt of court notices to the 17 lawyers so far on account of their contemptuous act during the incident which took place on February 8. The names of lawyers who issued notices included Ahsan Majeed Gujjar, Arbab Ayub Gujjar, Faiser Jadoon, Farzana Mughal, Hamad Dar, Naseer Kayani, Nazia Abbasi, Raja Zahid, Shaista Tabbasum, Yasmin Rashid, Sindhu, Kulsoom Rafique, Kamran Yousafzai, Hafiz Malik Mazhar Javed, Khalid Mehmood, Raja Amjad, Raja Farrukh and Tasadduq Hanif. The lawyers’ bodies announced the strike called after police registered cases against lawyers following the attack on the court and chambers of the IHC CJ by the lawyers on Monday. The enraged lawyers had ransacked the chamber of Chief Justice of IHC Justice Athar Minallah and also chanted slogans against him and Capital Development Authority (CDA) for the demolition of their chambers at Islamabad district courts in F-8 sector. Due to the strike, the IHC and its sub-divisional courts in the federal capital remained closed on Tuesday and lawyers and litigants opted to remain away from the courts in this situation. In this scenario, the security for the high court as well as the Supreme Court was beefed up, with heavy contingents of police and Rangers guarding the courts.
Meanwhile, a statement of condemnation of the incident and call for legal action against the lawyers involved in the ruckus was issued with the signs of some 70 lawyers. The statement said, “As lawyers practicing in the courts of Islamabad, we issue this statement to condemn the assault that took place on the Court of Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court and the ransacking of his office.”
It added, “We will not mince our words here: an attack on the judiciary is an attack on the very foundation of the legal profession, itself. As such, it has laid bare the true motivations of those who engage in such acts: pure self-interest, with the expectation that the law will bend over backwards to accommodate it.”
The statement further said that it is highly disappointing that the Islamabad Bar Council has failed to perform its regulatory functions to regulate the conduct of lawyers. It is due to the failure of the IBC that the situation has reached to today’s incident where members of the bar attacked the IHC without fear. It maintained that the Pakistan Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules, 1976 places upon us a duty to “uphold at all times the dignity and high standing” of this profession. They added, “Unfortunately, this has been reduced to mere text on paper.”
In a relevant development, the Islamabad Bar Council held a joint session with the cabinet member of IHCBA and DBA Islamabad and passed a joint resolution condemning the demolition of the chambers constructed with the approval of the relevant authorities.