‘No HC has jurisdiction to nix PBC orders’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) Vice Chairman Haroonur Rashid on Monday said the Sindh High Court had no jurisdiction to set aside any order passed by the PBC or its Executive Committee in Islamabad as the proper forum for that was ICT courts.

In a statement issued here, he demanded that Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Qazi Faez Isa look into the matter and take appropriate action. He said it was often observed that the Executive Committee orders assailed by the aggrieved person(s) were being taken up by the SHC which issued orders not entertainable in the eye of the law due to a lack of jurisdiction. 

He said the tendency of such issues created serious doubts upon credibility of decisions passed without jurisdiction. “No high court of any province has jurisdiction, especially the SHC, to create hindrance in the affairs of the regulatory body of lawyers, which has the mandate under Section 13 (2) of the Legal Practitioners & Bar Councils Act 1973, to decide matters of all bar associations challenged before it,” he concluded.