By Tariq Butt
ISLAMABAD: The allocations for bar associations, being doled out these days at top speed by Federal Law Minister Babar Awan in his discretion, went sky-high in the new federal budget compared to last year’s original budgetary allotment of funds for the same purpose. The government increased the allocation under this head by 2,300 per cent (or 23 times) in the recent budget as against last year, documents show.
The documents reveal that in the previous budget 2009-10, the government earmarked just Rs18 million for grants-in-aid to the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and bar associations. But a whopping sum of Rs420 million has been allocated in new fiscal 2010-11.
Documents disclose that the original allocation of Rs18 million in the 2009-10 budget was hiked to Rs457 million in the revised estimates of the same year, incorporated in the supplementary grants that the National Assembly will possibly approve any time. This points to a 2,400% (or 24 times) increase over the initially budgeted funds.
Howevr, the allocation of Rs420 million in the new budget 2010-11 is Rs37 million less than the revised estimates of Rs457 million of the last fiscal 2009-10. If the allocation for the new year (Rs420 million) and revised estimates of the previous year (Rs457 million) for bar associations are put together, the law ministry has an enormous sum of Rs877 million for one set of professional bodies, clearly indicating that it was politically motivated.
A prominent leader of the People’s Lawyers’ Forum (PLF), the lawyers’ wing of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Abdullah Malik, told The News that his organisation, which has a dominant say among advocates, has nothing to do with the law minister’s trips.
During the first six months of the fiscal 2009-10, the Law Ministry could not distribute any considerable funds among the bar associations as it did not have a full-fledged active minister, an official said.
Babar Awan took over as law minister in December 2009 after the judgment of the Supreme Court against the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), and after that the process of doling out state funds started, which picked up the pace over the past few months.
Informed circles say that the record raise is meant to put a colossal sum at the disposal of the law minister to dish out among the bar associations in a bid to win over the support of the lawyers so that they stand with the government if such a need arises.
The law minister has distributed over Rs200 million among bar associations in the past few months, and made public announcements to the effect during his visits to the PBC offices and different bar associations all over Pakistan. He accelerated this campaign in the last some weeks in view of the fast approaching elections to the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) that the government is determined to get a candidate enjoying its support win.
In the new fiscal, the Law Ministry has been allocated a total of Rs1464 million for spending throughout the year under different heads. The present annual allocation for bar associations, Rs420 million, is 29per cent of the total funds earmarked for the law ministry in 2010-11 financial year.
In the budget 2009-10, the original total allocation for the law ministry was Rs941 million, but it went up to Rs1,406 million in the revised estimates. The increase was simply because of the raise in the funds put aside for the bar associations.
The official said that the Law Ministry would pay to the Pakistan Air Force out of the funds assigned for the bar associations for providing a special plane to the law minister for his recent visits to different cities to announce funds for lawyers’ bodies.
Abdullah Malik said the PLF did not associate itself with Babar Awan. Malik said that Law Secretary Masood Chishti and some deputy attorneys general, who were under Babar Awan and were picked up by him for these official jobs, have been accompanying the law minister during his visits but added that they have no influence among the lawyers.
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