PTI lawyers hijack PML-N legal team

• PML-N govt hires AAGs, DAGs from PTI’s Hamid Khan’s group on AGP Salman Butt’s recommendation
• AGP’s affiliation with PTI’s Hamid Khan, Pirzada established by CLM sources

The Sharif’s side has chosen its top legal marksmen from the ‘enemy’s camp’, however, it remains to be seen which side they fight for and how much ‘bounty’ they can secure.

Pakistan Today has found out that the legal wizards that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government has chosen to defend its case in superior courts belong to the lawyers’ group affiliated with Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), mainly involving Sharifuddun Pirzada and PTI Vice President Hamid Khan.

The captain of the government’s team, Attorney General Pakistan (AGP) Salman Aslam Butt, has served in the past with Pirzada and has co-authored a book with Hamid Khan. Both Butt and Khan have worked together at the joint law company, Cornelius, Lane and Mufti (CLM), for 28 years.

Interestingly, even after taking over as AGP for Nawaz Sharif’s legal team, Butt still shares chambers with Hamid Khan despite having a conflict of interest with the latter’s party.

Sources in the CLM say that the chambers staff still helps Butt in preparation of many government cases and many of his associates have joined the AGP office as Additional Attorney Generals (AAG), Deputy Attorney General’s (DAG) and even as legal consultants.

PTI LAWYERS ON A MISSION:

Arshad Khan Jadoon, who is secretary general of PML-N‎ lawyers’ forum and is also working as deputy attorney general, told Pakistan Today that it was sad to note that the government’s legal team had been hijacked by PTI lawyers due to Khan’s influence on Butt.

“The AGP has hired services of around eight junior lawyers, who worked in Hamid Khan and Salman Butt’s chambers, into the government’s legal team. Each of them are being paid salary up to Rs 1,800,000 per month as the AGP has created posts to accommodate his law firm’s partners but actually are working to fulfil PTI’s agenda,” he said, adding that the PML-N lawyers forum had convened meetings of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad chapters to denounce the hiring of government’s law officers to damage the PML-N government’s agenda.

Jadoon said that the posts created included MP-I, MP-II, and MP-III to adjust teammates of the AGP while senior lawyers of PML-N had been ignored.

He also claimed that Waqar Rana, who is another close aide of Hamid Khan, had been looking after Khan’s work in Islamabad for almost two decades ‎but now he also had been employed by AGP in the government’s team.

A source in CLM also confirmed that Rana worked with ‎Hamid Khan while he also was an assistant to Sharifuddin Pirzada.

Jadoon added that a meeting of the party’s lawyers’ wing had formed a six-member joint action committee, headed by Ghulam Hyder Thind, a party lawyer from Sindh, to take up the matter to the party’s leadership in Islamabad.

PML-N LAWYERS CONCERNED:

PML-N KP Lawyers Wing President Alamzeb Khan has also voiced his concerns against the appointment of lawyers from Hamid Khan group as legal team of his own party’s government.

A meeting was held with Alamzeb Khan in the chair noting that most of the DAGs hired by the PML-N government belonged to the group.

Khan later announced to hold protest demos across KP against the policy of his own party’s government of ignoring party loyalists and preferring “strangers” on party colleagues. He urged Arshad Khan Jadoon to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and register the grievances of the party leaders.

MAKING IT OFFICIAL:

Moreover, according to an official handout, President Mamnoon Hussain has also approved ‎appointment of six lawyers as Additional Attorneys General (AAG) and Deputy Attorneys General (DAG) on advice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

According to the statement, Waqar Rana and Afnan Karim Kundi have been appointed AAGs,‎ while Dr Syed Muhammad Anwer has been appointed as DAG for Islamabad High Court‎.

In the meanwhile, Abdur Rashid Awan and Asim Mansoor Khan have been appointed DAGs for‎ Karachi.

BUTT HAS SOMETHING TO SAY:

‎AGP Salman Butt has also confirmed his association with Hamid Khan while talking to media.

“Now I have separated my business from Hamid Khan recently,” he added – a fact sources at CLM refute.

Butt has further claimed that the appointments made on his request as AAGs and DAGs were made purely on merit, adding that not a single law officer had been appointed out of favour.

However, Butt has offered to accommodate PML-N lawyers, stating that those think them eligible should contact him to get themselves appointed.