ISLAMABAD- Three days after lawyers ransacked the judicial compound, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Wednesday properly started its work while a large contingent of security personnel remained present there protecting the premises. The IHC also issued contempt of court notices to 12 more lawyers on account of their contemptuous acts during the incident that took place on February 8 when the lawyers barged into the IHC building and caused havoc at IHC Chief Justice block. The names of lawyers included Akhtar Hussain, Asad Ullah Khan, Khalid Mehmood Khan, Muhammad Asif Gujjar, Muhammad Rustam Malik, Muhammad Shoaib Choudhary, Muhammad Umer, Naveed Hayat Malik, Nusrat Parveen, Saiful Islam Sindhu, Shela Shan Abbasi and Zafar Khokhar. Already, the bench had issued contempt notices to 17 lawyers and thus total number of advocates who have been issued contempt notices so far is 29. During a hearing of the case, the IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah said about the incident that he himself ordered the police to retreat and remained stood there for three hours under the siege of the lawyers. He said that out of six thousand lawyers, only a hundred lawyers attacked the IHC and he termed the attack on the IHC as an action by five per cent of the lawyers which earned bad name for the whole legal community. Expressing his regret over the incident, he neither supported any illegal act nor he would do it. Justice Athar remarked that he never expected that the lawyers could carry out attack on him. He mentioned that Quaid-e-Azam obtained Pakistan through his professional conduct. The IHC Chief Justice termed the attack on IHC as disrespect to 90 martyrs of the lawyers’ movement. He made it clear that no one is above the law and the law would take its course in this matter. He said that it is not attack on his personality rather it is assault on the institution and judiciary.
The Chief Justice added that the authority in this matter is the bar council and it should look into this matter. He maintained that that such an incident would not happen again if those responsible for this incident are exemplified.
He hoped that the bar would take action against the lawyers responsible for this attack. The lawyers’ rampage was also mentioned during hearing of a case before Justice Aamer Farooq who said that the attack is reflection of what we have become. We need to think seriously about what we have become. He remarked that whether it is a judge or a lawyer, we need to respect each other. He further said that it is the matter of dignity of an institution instead of an individual.
On the other hand, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association called for a complete strike and announced a boycott of the court saying that action would be taken against any lawyer who appeared in any court.