ISLAMABAD-The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will Monday (today) resume the misconduct proceedings against 21 lawyers for storming the judicial compound on February 8.
A three-member larger bench of the IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Ms. Lubna Saleem Pervez will conduct hearing of the complaint filed by the IHC Registrar wherein it had already suspended the licenses of 21 lawyers.
In this regard, the bench had already suspended the licenses of 21 lawyers in misconduct proceedings against them for storming the judicial compound on February 8. In its order, the court had observed that they are, prima-facie, of the opinion that the 21 respondents arrayed in the complaint in hand had committed grave acts of indiscipline and misconduct on the 8th of February, 2021.
It added, “In exercise of powers conferred under section 54(1) of the Act of 1973, pending further proceedings, we hereby order suspension of the licenses of the twenty one respondents i.e. Naseer Ahmed Kayani, Tasadduq Hanif, Hammad Saeed Dar, Khalid Mehmood Khan, Ahsan Majeed Gujjar, Akhtar Hussain, Shaista Tabassum, Asad Khan, Faiser Jadoon, Hafiz Malik Mazhar Javed, Khalid Taj, Naveed Hayat Malik, NaziaAbbasi, Nusrat Parveen, Raja Amjad, Raja Khurram Farrukh, Zahid Mehmood Raja, Younas Kayani, Muhammad Umar, Moin Bazai, Pir Fida.”
“They are given an opportunity to satisfy this Court why complaints may not be referred to the respective regulatory authorities i.e. the Pakistan Bar Council and Islamabad Bar Council, as the case may be, for taking disciplinary proceedings,” maintained the IHC bench.
The court observed that at this stage, 21 respondents arrayed in the proceedings in hand have been shortlisted after careful scrutiny out of 150 enrolled lawyers alleged to have been involved in the grave act of storming the High Court and/or making it dysfunctional for more than four hours.
It also said that the 21 arrayed respondents, prima-facie, had a leading role in the grave acts described above.
“Before we proceed to send their complaints to the respective regulatory bodies, we are affording them another opportunity to satisfy this Court that they had not actively acted, aided or facilitated the grave acts of 8th of February, 2021,” said the IHC chief justice.