The government on Saturday barred Chaudhry Aitizaz Ahsan, the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), from entering the premises of the Supreme Court building where a large number of personnel of law enforcing agencies were deployed.
Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan was scheduled to attend the executive body meeting of the SCBA at its office in the Supreme Court on Saturday. The authorities, however, declined to allow him to enter the premises of the SC building situated on the Constitution Avenue.
The Supreme Court building management had locked the main gate where the police were deployed. Even journalists covering the SC proceedings and issued proper cards were not allowed to enter the premises.
When Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, along with a large number of lawyers and SCBA members, arrived at the SC main gate, he was not allowed to enter the building.
Meanwhile, addressing a press conference at the SC building main gate, the SCBA president strongly protested at the measures adopted by the authorities and said that the gates of the "magnificent building" where the masses must be ensured justice were being locked and people had no access to justice.
He said they were scheduled to hold an SCBA executive body meeting to discuss some financial matters of the association as well as matters pertaining to the salaries of its staff but they were not allowed to enter the building.
He alleged that the government was bent upon sabotaging the peaceful movement launched by the legal fraternity but they would continue their struggle till the restoration of the deposed judges.
"It has been written on the skies that the judges who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) would be restored," Aitzaz said.
The SCBA president said that the PCO judges and others were residing in the same colony where chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other deposed judges of the superior courts had been detained behind the barbed wires since the imposition of emergency on November 3, 2007.
He said when the PCO judges could not dare to raise their voice for the deposed judges and take notice of the injustice being meted out to the members of their families and their children, who were being denied education, how the people of this country could accept such powerless courts.
Chaudhry Aitzaz said that detaining the deposed judges and members of their families, President Musharraf had committed a "heinous crime" for which there was a stern punishment.
"We strongly protest the hurdles today created by the authorities by not allowing us to enter the Supreme Court building as we only aimed at holding the meeting," he said and added that they would hold a short meeting at the gate and would later move to the Supermarket, Aabpara Chowk, and then to Rawalpindi where the trader community had invited them for hoisting "black flags" to express solidarity with the lawyers. Aitzaz, after holding a short meeting of the SCBA executive body, left the venue.