Hamid Khan-led group retains president’s office

LHCBA elections

Candidate backed by Asma Jahangir loses again; elections also held for high court bar associations in Multan, Islamabad, Rawalpindi

LAHORE/MULTAN/ISLAMABAD: Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali of Hamid Khan-led Professional Group won the presidential slot of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) by defeating his main rival Ramzan Sohal Chaudhry of Asma Jahangir’s Independent Group in the annual elections held on Saturday.

Ramzan faced second consecutive defeat as he had also lost last year against Rana Zia Abdur Rehman of Professional Group.

Interestingly, the Professional Group is now holding the presidential slots of Supreme Court Bar Association, LHCBA and Lahore Bar Association at the same time after many years.

As per unofficial results, Zulfiqar secured 3,365 votes, while Ramzan could manage 2,909 out of a turnout of 6,600.

Two other candidates for the president’s slot – Aazar Latif Khan and Sardar Khurram Latif Khosa – bagged 744 and 641 votes respectively. 

Rashid Lodhi with 4,419 votes was elected vice-president in one-on-one contest with Chaudhry Muhammad Saleem who obtained 3,276 votes.

Amir Saeed Raan notched the slot of secretary by getting 2,396 votes while Muhammad Zaheer Butt was elected finance secretary. He got 3446 votes.

The election board chairman, Javed Iqbal Raja, conducted the polling both electronically and manually.

Strict security measures were taken in and outside the LHC as no one, including lawyers, were allowed entry without thorough frisking and presentation of CNIC along with membership card of the LHCBA.

The law enforcement agencies kept the shops near and around the high court closed.

The police also arrested three persons for their suspicious movement outside the high court.

Wild celebrations erupted among the supporters of winning candidates as they started dancing on drum beat and distributed sweets.

On the other hand, independent candidate Sher Zaman was elected as the Multan High Court Bar Association (MHCBA) securing 2,119 votes against his rival Jafar Bokhari who bagged 1,692 votes. Other elected office bearers included Sahibzada Farid Nadeem (general secretary), Feroza Faiz (vice-president) and Asma Jabain Khan (library secretary).

The executive committee members are Aslam Rao, Mian Tahir Iqbal, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Faizullah Khan, Ramzan Bhatti, Rafiq Ahmad and Malik Sibghatul Hasnain.

Similarly, Arif Chaudhry was elected as the new president of Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA), obtaining 525 votes against his opponent Khizer Rasheed who got 518 votes.

It was a neck and neck competition as the victory margin was just seven votes.

For general secretary, Arbab Alam succeeded with 550 votes against 485 of Abdur Rafay.

Hafiz Asif elected as joint secretary with 528 votes. A total of 1,053 votes were polled out of 1,522 registered lawyers.

Among the elected unopposed office bearers are: Dr Riaz Hussain Azam (secretary finance), Riaz Khalil (vice-president), GM Chaudhry (library secretary) and the five executive body members.

For the High Court Bar Association Rawalpindi Bench elections, Zafar Mehmood Mughal was elected as president with 965 votes. His opposing candidates were: Ghulam Mustafa Kandwal (571 votes), Sarkar Abbas (471 votes) and Mir Ghufran Khursheed eight votes.

For the seat of general secretary, Barrister Shah Nawaz Noon remained successful with 1,228 votes.

The opposing candidate Ghazanfar Abbas bagged 763 votes.

Malik Sajjad Hussain was declared successful on the seat of senior vice-president with 1,513 votes against Abdur Rehman Shahid who got 340 votes.

Bilal Mughal was elected as joint secretary with 1,050 votes while Ch Ijaz Gujjar secured 654 votes.

The vice-president, additional joint secretary and five member executive body had already been elected unopposed. Out of a total of 2,980, the number of votes polled was 2,058.