The Hamid Khan-led Professional group returned to the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) after a gap of three years with Maqsood Buttar notching the top slot of president with a significant margin in an annual election held on Saturday for 2021-22.
In Multan, Riaz Hussain Gilani elected as President while Sajjad HaiderMaitla as General Secretary, Shehzad Jafari as Vice President,Mehr Nawaz as Finance Secretary and Nausheen Afshan Baloch as Library Secretary of LHBA Multan.
The Independent group, better known as late Asma Jahangir’s group, retained the top slot for three consecutive years since 2018.
Buttar bagged 5,639 votes and his rival Sardar Akbar Ali Dogar of the Independent group obtained 3,888 in a one-on-one contest.
A total of 9,583 out of 21,667 cleared voters cast their votes in the polling held on the biometric system.
Buttar enjoyed support of the lawyers` wings of PPP, PTl, Jamaat-i-Islami and a faction of PML-N headed by bar’s former secretary Rana Asadullah Khan, also the brother of MPA Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan.
Former governor of Punjab Sardar Latif Khosa’s faction of Peoples Lawyers Forum (PLF) also supported Buttar.
Main chapter of PML-N Lawyers` Forum led by its president Naseer Ahmad Bhutta and a bloc of PLF headed by Abid Saqi usually backed the late Asma’s group. All factions of Insaf Lawyers Forum, including the major one of Barrister Ali Zafar, were also behind Dogar. Zafar is also a senior member of the late Asma’s group.
Mudassir Abbas Maghiana was elected as vice president with 4,261 ballots against his two rivals Sohail Shafiq Chaudhry and Ashraf Jalal who could get 4,189 and 1,020 votes, respectively.
Khwaja Mohsin Abbas of the Independent group notched the slot of secretary. He secured 5,555 votes against 3,935 obtained by Akhtar Padda of the Professional group.
Faisal Tauqir Sial was elected as finance secretary with 4,160 votes. Two runner-up candidates – Rana Waseem Yousaf Khan and Falak Naz Gill - obtained 4,050 and 1,309 votes, respectively.
After the announcement of the results, the supporters of the winners burst into loud slogans and danced to the drum beats in jubilation. Fireworks were also played by the jubilant lawyers. (Multan High Court Bar)
Total 4626 out of 8276 votes were cast in the election of Multan High Court Bar making the turn out of 55.86 %. The winner Riaz Hussan Gilani bagged 2661 votes while rival candidate Muhammad Irfan Wyne got 1942 votes. Muhammad Shehzad Hussain Jafari elected as Vice President ,his rivals Aurangzeb Baloch got 1692 and Farrukh Mustafa Kamal got 979 votes. Sajjad Hussain Maitla elected after tough competition with PPP's Safdar Hussain Sarsana with a margin of merely 15 votes. He got 1664 while his rival got 1649 votes.Rana Anwar Ali Khan and Ch.Dildar Barola were on the third and fourth position. Mehr Muhammad Nawaz Nole elected as finance secretary by obtaining 1926 votes his rival Adnan bin Nasir Haideri got 1606 votes While Nausheen Afshan Baloch elected as Library Secretary by getting 2404 votes,her rival Shehnaz Saeed Qazi got 1144 votes.(BAHAWALPUR HIGH COURT) Amir Ajam Malik and Ch.Imran Ashraf have been elected as President and General Secretary of Bahawalpur High Court Bar Association
