LBA members protest against LHC’s new mechanism for case allocation

LBA members protest against LHC’s new mechanism for case allocation

LBA members protest against LHC’s new mechanism for case allocation

A heavy contingent of police were deployed at court premises. Image: File

Advertisement

LAHORE: Members of the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) on Tuesday locked down all the city courts and went on a complete boycott to record their protest against a newly introduced mechanism by the Lahore High Court (LHC) regarding case allocation on the basis of tehsil and sub-division.

The enraged lawyers locked down all the courtrooms, entrance gates of the sessions court, civil courts, City Courts, Cantt courts and Model Town Courts. The lawyers denied access to the judges, court staff and litigants in the court premises and only allowed lawyers to enter there.

A heavy contingent of police were deployed at court premises, however, the cabinet of the LBA held a dialogue with District & Sessions Judge Habibulah Amir and later the policemen were asked to leave court premises and station outside.

Read more: LHC bars electronic, print media from carrying unregistered housing schemes’ ads

Advertisement

But no breakthrough was achieved on the issue of withdrawal of notification regarding allocation of cases. Police officers also reached the court and tried to persuade the protesting lawyers to open the entrance gates but to no avail.

Later, the sessions judge went to the LHC to take up the matter with the authority concerned but the deadlock persisted between both the sides. The lawyers had launched their protest on Monday after the Lahore sessions judge had declined to withdraw the notification.

The courts were wearing a deserted look as thousands of litigants had to go back without attending their cases. Looking dejected Saira Ali, a litigant, said she had come from Islamabad to attend her family case but had to return without any progress. “It is very unfortunate that our judicial system is not working the way it should be and consequently the litigants have to bear the unbearable expenses,” she said.

On the other side, LBA President Rao Sami announced that the lawyers would continue their protest till the withdrawal of the notifications about the new mechanism of case allocation. He said the lawyers were the main stakeholder but the sessions judge did not consult them before issuing a controversial notification.

“We are forced to lodge a protest as the LBA cabinet had written a letter to Lahore sessions judge for withdrawal of the notification but he paid no heed,” he opined.

Advertisement

Read more: LHC seeks report on plea filed for prisoner’s kidney transplant

He made it clear that lawyers did not believe in violence and their protest would remain peaceful. He said allocation of cases was the first step towards the bigger plan of establishing courts at Raiwind, Manawan, and other parts of the city. He said it was a conspiracy hatched to divide the lawyers but the people having vested interests would fail in doing so.  He stated that the lawyers would not flinch an inch from their genuine demand.

Senior Vice President Khurran Mir said the lawyers would foil any attempt to divide them. Citing the example of Karachi, he said the biggest city administratively has been divided into four districts but all the courts work in the same premises. He said it would be humanly impossible to deal with cases at Raiwind and Manawann at the same time or day. He said that the move would not reduce backlog of the cases rather it would pile up the cases abnormally.

The sessions judge recently issued a notification regarding allocation of cases pending before civil courts at Aiwan-i-Adl to the judges nominated for respective tehsils/sub-divisions of the plaintiffs concerned.

Advertisement

The decision was apparently taken to reduce the workload of the courts stationed at the Aiwan-i-Adl.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Read More News On

Catch all the Pakistan News, Breaking News Event and Latest News Updates on The BOL News


Download The BOL News App to get the Daily News Update & Follow us on Google News.


End of Article

Next Story