ISLAMABAD – The newly elected executive body of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) will hold its first meeting here today (Monday) to elect its vice chairman, most probably from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
According to a senior lawyer affiliated with Pakistan People’s Party, the new vice chairman will be elected from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said although the names of Muhammad Yaseen Khan Azad from Sindh, Amanullah Khan Kunrani from Balochistan and Saeed Akhtar Awan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were under consideration, however, the nomination of Saeed Akhtar was most probable.
He claimed that majority of the PBC executive body members had sympathies and affiliation with PPP, so the new vice chairman would be elected with the consent of Federal Law Minister Dr Babar Awan who wanted to see Saeed Akhtar as the PBC executive body vice chairman.
The election for the executive body members of PBC was held on December 22, 2010 and its result announced on December 31. Attorney General for Pakistan Maulvi Anwarul Haq, who is ex-officio chairman of the PBC, was the returning officer for the election, while the advocates general of all the four provinces acted as presiding officers at different polling stations established at the high court buildings in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.
The members of the provincial bar councils, who are voters of the PBC, polled votes for 22 members of the PBC for the next five-year term against the seats reserved for their respective provinces. The total 22 seats of the PBC are divided among the provinces. The Punjab has 11 seats, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa four, Sindh six and Balochistan one.
The PBC executive body elects its vice chairman every year from amongst its elected members. Two terms are given to the Punjab and one each to other provinces. As per official results, 22 members of the PBC elected for next five years are: Amanullah Kunrani from Balochistan; Qaiser Rashid Khan, Abdul Latif Afridi, Muhammad Saeed Akhtar and Roohul Amin Chamkani from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Salahuddin Panhwar, Akhtar Hussain, Zia Ahmed Awan, Rasheed A Rizvi, Muhammad Yaseen Khan Azad and Faisal Kamal Alam from Sindh and Hamid Khan, Syed Qalbe Hassan, Burhan Moazzam Malik, Azam Nazeer Tarar, Muhammad Maqsood Buttar, Mohammad Ahsan Bhoon, Syed Muhammad Kaleem Ahmad Khurshid, Muhammad Ramzan Chaudhry, Asrarul Haq Mian, Mian Abbas Ahmad and Abdul Quddus Mian from Punjab.
According to senior lawyers, the role of PBC has become crucial from the enrolment of lawyers to practice in the Supreme Court to the appointment of superior court judges. The PBC was established by the Parliament in 1973 under the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1976. It is the highest elected body of lawyers in Pakistan with the attorney general as its ex-officio chairman.
