ISLAMABAD - Tussle between the legal community, district judiciary and police has intensified over construction of lawyers chambers at district courts F-8 Markaz Islamabad and police have termed these newly erected chambers as a “security threat”.
The row started last week when around 21 chambers of lawyers constructed illegally on the land of post office were demolished. The lawyers strongly protested against it and locked down the district courts and ‘detained’ some judges in protest against the demolition of the chambers.
They declared the district courts a no-go area and also shut down a block housing 20 courtrooms. They alleged that the drive against encroachment was planned to disrupt their strike against the government’s proposal for transferring lower court judges to ministries and departments of the federal government.
Later, the lawyers constructed some 50 chambers again in various areas of F-8 Markaz.
Consequently, police booked some of them, while in a letter written to a session’s judge, the police termed the illegal chambers of lawyers as a security threat.
Police which had already booked six lawyers for building illegal structures on land owned by the Pakistan Post on an application filed by a postal department official, has filed another first information report (FIR) against the lawyers.
The case was registered against advocate Raja Hassan along with 14 other lawyers and Amir Hamza for illegally building chambers on state land in F-8 Markaz and the adjoining government-owned football ground, and for ripping up metal pipes and corrugated tin sheets and caused damage.
There are reports that even the judges of the district and session courts are not happy with the attitude of lawyers.
The lawyers, who have been boycotting the courts for the past week, have also declined to attend hearings of important cases which resulted in those cases stalling.
Meanwhile, the Islamabad Police have also written a letter to a district and sessions judge, that the illegal chambers built by the lawyers had made it impossible to provide security to the district courts.
In a letter, the police stated that lawyers had encroached on the main entry points to the district courts and wanted to bring in construction material to build their chambers.
It added that the district courts have already suffered two devastating suicide bombings in the recent past; the construction of the illegal chambers would compromise the security of judges and litigants.
Therefore, the police said that in case an incident takes place in the district courts, the responsibility for it would fall squarely on the lawyers.
In this situation, the Islamabad Bar Association (IBA) called a general body meeting of its members on to review the situation and demanded that the police should withdraw the cases filed against lawyers.
Islamabad Bar Association warned that unless the cases are withdrawn, they would build chambers all around the district courts and would stage a massive protest on January 1.
Later, president Islamabad Bar Association Riasat Ali Azad in his video message strongly reacted against this letter saying that police and district judiciary in collaboration with each other are hatching conspiracy against district bar association.
He said that Islamabad Bar Association strongly condemns this act of police and district judiciary.