PESHAWAR: A senior lawyer has moved Peshawar High Court against suspension of licences of his three colleagues by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council executive committee last month during a controversy between the legal fraternity and civil servants.

Advocate Mohammad Muazzam Butt has also challenged the exercising of powers of suspending licences of lawyers by the bar council executive committee, terming it in violation of the relevant rules.

The petitioner has requested the high court to declare as without jurisdiction and illegal the suspension of licences of three lawyers, Roohullah Afridi, Mian Suleman Shah and Ibrar Hussain, by KPBC executive committee.

Mr Butt has also sought directives of the court for KPBC that it should not issue any notification of suspension of the licence of any lawyer by virtue of orders passed by its executive committee except the due process of law prescribed in Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act, 1973, and rules made there under.

Petitioner also challenges powers of KP bar council’s executive body

The petitioner has also sought interim relief from the court, requesting that till final disposal of the petition the executive committee may be restrained from issuance of any notification of suspension/cancellation of licence of any lawyer.

The licences of the three lawyers were suspended by the executive committee of bar council after a group of lawyers, protesting against arrest of their senior colleague Syed Ghufranullah Shah on order of an additional assistant commissioner at a filling station last month, had allegedly attacked the premises of the Peshawar deputy commissioner’s office.

The respondents in the petition are Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government through its chief secretary, KPBA through its secretary, KPBC executive committee through its chairman and the three suspended lawyers.

The petitioner stated that the licences of the three lawyers were suspended by the executive committee on June 14. He stated that their suspension had shocked the entire legal fraternity.

He said that the spokesperson for the provincial government had informed the public at large that the conflict between the lawyers and local administration was amicably resolved and the AAC would be suspended in context of an FIR registered against him on complaint of the lawyer, Syed Ghufranullah, and likewise the lawyers, who had agitated on the premises of the deputy commissioner office, would be suspended as an FIR had been registered against them.

He stated that in the meantime the notification about suspension of licences of the lawyers was circulated on the social media.

He said that during the conflict, the lawyers had also staged a sit-in near the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

The petitioner contended that the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act, 1973, had never assigned such powers to the executive committee to either suspend or cancel licences of lawyers. He said that the executive committee was also not empowered to negotiate any deal with the government on behalf of the lawyers and to suspend licences of lawyers as outcome of any deal.

The controversy had started after Syed Ghufranullah was arrested and an FIR was registered against him on order of the AAC wherein he was accused of stopping the officer from performing his duty at a filling station on June 2.

Subsequently, another FIR was registered on June 4 against the AAC, Aftab Ahmad, on the orders of a local court wherein the lawyer, Ghufranullah, was complainant and the AAC and his two police guards were charged with torturing and illegally detaining him.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2022