ISLAMABAD: A member of a group in the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday an application seeking to set aside the Nov 5 decision of another group which had appointed one of its members as the council`s spokesperson in place of its vice-chairman.

The miscellaneous application was filed by Shoaib Shaheen who requested the court to hear the matter along with his earlier appeal which is likely to be heard on Thursday by a three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed.Earlier, the case was fixed before a two-judge bench consisting of Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Faisal Arab which had ordered that the matter be fixed before the three-judge bench for Thursday with a directive for the bar council to convene a meeting and settle issues, except reconstitution of standing committees.

The council had dissolved the committees, but the Islamabad High Court annulled the dissolution and asked the PBC to settle the dispute regarding who commanded the majority on its own.

Subsequently, the council held a meeting on Nov 5 and the majority group appointed KamranMurtaza as spokesman of the council in place of vice-chairman Dr Farogh Naseem while setting aside all earlier decisions of the PBC appeal committee.

In his fresh application, Shoaib Shaheen argued that the PBC Appeal Rules 1986 suggested that the term of every appellate committee of the council would be five years like that of the PCB as per Section 4 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act 1973.

The rules also state that decisions of the appeal committee will deem to be those of the PBC.

Thus the council could not alter, review or change the decisions of the appeal committee andassume the role of the appellate or revision authority, the appeal said.

In a related development, the Sindh High Court, while taking up a petition moved by 31 senior lawyers, on Wednesday suspended the PBC`s Nov 5 decision of appointing Kamran Murtaza as spokesperson.

The petitioners included Dr Farogh Naseem, newly appointed Supreme Court Bar Association president Rashid A. Razvi, Abid Zuberi and Muneer A. Malik.

The high court issued notices to the respondents as well as to the deputy advocate general for Sindh for Nov 14 while suspending the PBC decision.