ZAB Reference Case: Supreme Court temporarily suspends Babar Awan’s license

In quite an expected move, the Supreme Court Tuesday temporarily suspended the legal license of federation’s counsel and former law minister, Dr. Babar Awan for not submitting a reply in the contempt of court case against him.

An eleven-member bench of the apex court with Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in the chair resumed the hearing of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) presidential reference case.

The court rejected the request of Awan for more time to file the reply over the contempt notices served to him a couple of weeks back. Awan during the hearing stated that he respected the judiciary but will defend his case.

However, the apex court stated that it had given 15 days and that time was sufficient to file a reply.

The SC, in its ruling, said that the bar and bench had a relation of trust, but Babar Awan used very derogatory remarks. The CJ said the delivery of justice would be affected if institutions like Supreme Court were not respected.

“Babar Awan was given time to explain but he failed to comply with” the court stated.

The CJ while announcing the order asked President Asif Ali Zardari to get a new counsel in ZAB case other than Babar Awan as the apex court would not hear the case till the president appoints a new lawyer.

A written statement will be handed over to the attorney general who will forward it to the president for further proceedings.

Earlier, the Supreme Court, on January 05, had issued a contempt of court notice to Babar Awan during hearing of the ZAB reference case. The CJ observed, “How can things move forward without respect for the judiciary. We are the issuing authority and have the powers to cancel licenses as well.”

At the same day, the apex court while putting off the hearing issued another contempt notice to former law minister.

The court stated in its order, “Prima facie, we are of the view that the conduct of Dr Babar Awan is unbecoming of an advocate of the Supreme Court; therefore, we issue notice to him under Rule 30 of Order IV of the Supreme Court Rules 1980 to explain why his name not be removed from the Roll of the Advocates of this court.”

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jan 17 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.