The vandalism from the lawyers prompted the staff of DCO office at district courts to close their offices on Thursday as a group of lawyers manhandled government employees inside their offices.
According to details, a group of lawyers came to the Copy Brach of DCO’s Office the previous day and manhandled the government employees working there. An insider at the DCO office told Pakistan Today that the lawyers wanted to get the documents they needed before time and without following the official procedure. The staff of the DCO office told the lawyers to follow the procedure but they refused and started beating the employees. On Thursday, the lawyers once again came and misbehaved with the government employees. The employees of the DCO office locked their offices and started protesting against the vandalism of the lawyers.
Arshad Khan, who runs a shop in the district court and an eyewitness to the incident, told this scribe that it was truly a messy situation when lawyers came and started beating up the employees.
“The vandalism of the lawyers has become a routine here as the lawyers are found scuffling with police officials quite often,” he said. It is pertinent to mention here that a female judge was locked by some lawyers after not receiving a judgement in their favour a few days ago. The chief justice of the Lahore High Court has constituted a committee to probe the matter.
Chaudhry Shoaib Saleem, a practicing lawyer at the Lahore High Court (LHC) told Pakistan Today that the representatives of the bar councils need to sit together and come up with a policy to rein in the miscreant lawyers who are trying to defame this noble profession. He said that just like it is mandatory for a lawyer to pass medical, psychological and fitness tests prior to getting the license of the Supreme Court, it should be made mandatory at a lower level too.
“This policy of medical and fitness test must be introduced by the Punjab Bar Council at all the courts of the province to avoid any untoward incident because a normal and educated person cannot do such vandalism in his black uniform,” he said.
Rana Abdul Rehman Khan, another lawyer from LHC was said that such people are not doing any service to this profession but are instead bringing it shame through their acts of vandalism.
“I must admit that the lawyers are not seen with respect in the society because of these incidents,” he lamented. He agreed that the lawyers’ vandalism started after the lawyers movement of 2007.
Imran Maqbool, the public information officer at the DCO Office told Pakistan Today that the employees of the DCO Office have protested to show their anger against the attitude of the lawyers. There was no public dealing on Thursday as the offices were locked during the protest. The employees demand a stern action against the lawyers.