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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Asma group wins LHCBA polls, Chishti elected president

Malik Ahmad Qayyum wins secretary seat; supported by Pakistan Bar Council’s Tarar, Independent Group defeats Hamid Khan Group; CM felicitates winners; Asma Jahangir asks political parties to expel ‘horses’ to end their ‘trading’

By our correspondents
March 01, 2015
LAHORE: Pir Masood Chishti of the Independent Group, led by Asma Jahangir, has won the slot of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) president for the year 2015-16 by defeating Sheikh Shahid Maqbool of Professional Group, led by Hamid Khan.
Chishti secured 4,053 votes, while Maqbool bagged 3,118 votes. Many bar bigwigs were taken aback by Chisthi’s victory with a margin of 935 votes as they were predicting a nail-biting contest. However, it proved an easy victory for Chishti in the end.
Pakistan Bar Council Vice-Chairman Azam Nazir Tarar, its members Ahsan Bhoon and Burhan Mozzam Malik also backed Chishti.
Irfan Arif Sheikh was elected as the vice president. He secured 4,309 votes, while his opponent, Sofia Masood, got only 2,805 votes.
Malik Ahmad Qayyum won the secretary’s seat with 3,751 votes. He is the son of former LHC judge Malik Qayyum. His opponent Mian Asghar Ali secured 3,392 votes.
Syed Akhtar Hussain Shirazi was elected as the new finance secretary by bagging 2,628 votes, while Azeem Akram got 1,682, Nabeela Jaffri 1,445 and Amina Ajmal secured 1,395 votes.
The turnout remained on the lower side as only 7,171 lawyers exercised their right to vote, out of total 19,672 eligible voters. The turnout remained lower than 50 per cent.
Wild celebration erupted among the supporters of the winning candidates as they cheered and burst into chants. Others were distributing sweets and garlanding their winners.
Addressing lawyers, Chishti said he would leave no stone unturned to solve lawyers’ problems and would continue struggling for the supremacy of law and justice.
For the first time, biometric system was used for voting to make the process transparent. However, the Election Board had also allowed manual vote cast as all the eligible voters were unable to get themselves registered for biometric.
Polling was held in friendly atmosphere. Strict security arrangements were made for the election as walkthrough gates were installed on the entry points and heavy police contingents were deployed for security purposes.
Talking to reporters on the occasion, former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Asma Jahangir said show of hands in the Senate election was sheer rigging and there was no such example in the world where show-of-hands method was used for voting.
She said politicians considered themselves the wisest persons but politics is not a cricket match. The politicians should chalk out rules for politics as well. She said loud cries of horse-trading are being made in the parliament but why the political parties do not identify and expel ‘horse’ from their ranks to end ‘trading’.
Answering a question about military courts, she said masses and lawyers are staunch opponent of terrorism but no extra-constitutional steps should be taken.
APP adds: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain and others here Saturday congratulated newly-elected President Masood Chishti and other office-bearers of the LHCBA.