PESHAWAR: Lawyers boycotted courts across the province on Thursday protesting the rising prices of essential commodities and petroleum as well as exorbitant electricity and natural gas bills.

The call for the strike was given by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council.

The lawyers mostly stayed away from the Peshawar High Court and district courts.

KPBC vice-chairman Zarbadshah Khan and executive committee chairman Syed Mubashir Shah demanded of the government to do away with free provision of electricity, natural gas, petrol, air tickets to bureaucrats, judges and military officers.

They said that the continuous price hike, especially the escalating rates of essential commodities, had made people’s lives miserable.

Threaten to stage protests across country

The office-bearers of Peshawar High Court Bar Association, including president Mohammad Tariq Afridi and secretary general Lajbar Khan, told reporters that the present wave of price hike, unjust and unwarranted increase in the electricity bills and exorbitant increase in the prices of petroleum products was a matter of serious concern for the people.

They warned that if the situation didn’t improve, lawyers would start a countrywide protest movement.

The lawyer leaders said it was the need of the hour to withdraw special privileges in the shape of free electricity, petrol, gas and other perks to senior officials of the government and public functionaries.

They added that through such measures, billions of rupees could be saved and utilised for improving the living standard of the people.

Also, lawyers observed a strike in Mansehra, Charssada, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi, Khyber, Mohmand and Kohat districts.

Our correspondent from Mansehra adds: Lawyers boycotted courts in the district and demanded of the federal government to withdraw taxes and surcharges from power bills.

“We have moved the Peshawar High Court seeking withdrawal of taxes imposed on electricity bills by the federal government to please international lenders to get loans,” president of the district bar association Rafique Yusuf told reporters.

“Record increase in power tariff has forced people to take to the streets. They have been staging protests for almost a week to demand withdrawal of massive taxes and duties in power bills,” he said.

He said that the district bar association had filed a writ petition with the Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench praying it to strike down all sorts of explicit and implicit surcharges and charges mentioned in monthly electricity bills.

“We have also requested the high court to declare illegal the taxes incorporated in power bills to get loans from the International Monetary Fund,” he said.

The president of the bar association said that the lawyers had a unanimous view on the issue and therefore, they drafted the petition against inflated power bills after going through government and Wapda circulars issued from time to time.

“We want the caretaker federal government to provide people with relief, which should be permanent. Also, electricity and gas should not be supplied to anybody, even employees of Wapda and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Company, free of charge,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2023