PM, law minister congratulate Independent Group on SCBA victory
The two messages named the group's leaders but gave no seat count, turnout figure or margin, and named no rival panel.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar have congratulated the Independent Group on its victory in the Supreme Court Bar Association elections, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported in two separate messages that named no vote counts or margins.
According to APP, the prime minister congratulated the group on its victory and extended special felicitations to its leaders, Azam Nazeer Tarar and Ahsan Bhoon. In a separate statement, Tarar, a senator who holds the law and justice portfolio, congratulated the group's leadership and its newly elected representatives. APP's report on the minister's message consisted of that single sentence.
Both messages were carried on Thursday, the day the state news agency filed them. The Daily Independent also reported the prime minister's congratulation, under a headline saying he had felicitated the Independent Group on its Supreme Court Bar election victory.
The reports did not give the number of posts the Independent Group won, the number contested, the turnout, the margin over other candidates, the names of any rival panel, or the date the results were announced. No statement from the group itself, and no comment from any other candidate or panel, appeared in the reports available to this newspaper.
The SCBA is the representative body of lawyers entitled to appear before the Supreme Court. Its elections are followed outside the legal profession because the association's office-bearers speak publicly on the superior judiciary, on judicial appointments and on legislation affecting the courts, and because its contests are fought between panels that take positions on how the bar should deal with the government and the courts.
APP described Tarar as one of the Independent Group's leaders as well as the federal minister for law and justice; it named Ahsan Bhoon as the group's other leader. The agency did not say in either report which office within the association the group had won, or whether the ministerial congratulation referred to the same set of results.
Skardu Times could not independently confirm the scale of the Independent Group's victory from the material available overnight.
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