Lawyers in Islamabad’s F-8 court complex end strike after 40 days

ISLAMABAD: Lawyers in the federal capital’s Sector F-8 kutcheri ended their protest on Wednesday following a meeting with the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Justice Athar Minallah, reported Express News.

The lawyers were on strike for the last 40 days due to which some 50,000 cases were pending and not being heard.

The intervention by the IHC chief justice in resolving the issue made it possible for 70 judges to resume their work.

However, the lawyers’ demand of judges’ rotation remained unattended while the chambers built by the lawyers on land earmarked for a football ground adjacent to the district courts were also not demolished.

On Tuesday, the IHC had issued notices to lawyers’ bodies and the civic agency to submit replies regarding the chambers.

The directives were issued by a four-member bench of the IHC, comprising Justice Minallah, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzaib, Justice Aamer Farooque and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani, that heard a case filed over the construction of chambers on a football ground — an amenity plot — adjacent to Sector F-8 kutcheri.

Late last week, the Islamabad Bar Council had decided to seal some 20 illegal chambers of lawyers.

The move was an attempt to appease the judges to resume hearings in the district courts.

However, lawyers said that it had failed to sway judges who want the illegal chambers built outside the courts to be demolished first.

Source: The Express Tribune