LAHORE: The newly-elected chairman of the executive committee of the Punjab Bar Council (PBC), Azmat Ali Bokhari, on Wednesday overruled an order of his predecessor and suspended practicing license of an advocate involved in misbehaving with a judicial officer.

In his order, Mr Bokhari said the council’s executive committee had no power to restore license of advocate Rana Saeed, former vice-president of the Lahore Bar Association, passing a summarily decision on a reference sent by the Lahore High Court on the matter.

After suspending the license of the lawyer, Mr Bokhari referred the matter to a disciplinary committee of the PBC for final decision.

Meanwhile, newly-elected vice-chairman Malik Inayatullah Awan also suspended licenses of some members of his rivals from the Professional group for ‘illegally’ occupying the council office.

Those suspended include Jamil Asghar Bhatti, Munir Bhatti, Rana Intizar, Rana Saeed Anwar and Hasam Bisriya.

He referred the case of Abdul Samad Bisriya and Muhammad Hussain to the Pakistan Bar Council since both were lawyers of the Supreme Court.

Mr Awan and Mr Bokhari of the Ahsan Bhoon group were elected in an election conducted last week by Advocate General of Punjab Shakilur Rehman Khan, being ex-officio chairman of the PBC.

However, the polls became controversial when Professional group’s candidate Jamil Asghar Bhatti and his supporters boycotted the polling on a plea that the AGP violated rules by holding the election in his office instead of the PBC premises.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2017