Lawyer’s petition dismissed

LAHORE: Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by a lawyer seeking a direction for the government to transfer funds, received under Access to Justice Programme from different countries, to bar councils and associations in the wake of Covid-19 lockdown.

Advocate Shabbir Hussain pleaded in his petition that the government had been getting huge funds from time to time from international forums for the welfare of legal fraternity. However, he said, the government had not, deliberately, transferred the funds to the bars. The lawyer asked the court to order the government to transfer the entitled funds to Pakistan Bar Council, Punjab Bar Council and bar associations across the country.

He pleaded that the funds received under the access to justice programme should also be handed over to the bar councils and associations so that they could support the lawyers being suffered a lot due to the pandemic lockdown. The petitioner pointed out that high courts of other provinces had also sought reports from the government on petitions filed by lawyers with the same prayer. Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan, however, dismissed the petition for being not maintainable.