' QAZI MUHAMMAD FAROOQ, J.--- This writ petition has been filed by a local Advocate of the High Court Mr. Muhammad Muazzam Butt. It calls in question the election the respondent Qazi Muhammad Anwar, Advocate, a leading lawyer and Senator, as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council.
2. The petition is somewhat curious in that from its tenor and prayer it appears to be an amalgam of the Writs of Certiorari and Mandamus whereas in essence and spirit it is a writ of quo warranto.
Besides, it overlooks the scope and ambit of the writ of quo warranto.
3. The programme of election of members to the Pakistan Bar Council was notified on 16-3-1995 pursuant to which the proposals for election were delivered at the office of the Returning Officer, Attorney-General for Pakistan and Chairman Pakistan Bar Council, on 30-3-1995, the proposals were scrutinized on 8-4-1995, the voting had taken place on 20-4-1995 and the result of the election was declared on 4-5-1995.
4. The election was contested by the respondent. In all, 142 votes were cast of which one was rejected. Each valid vote was deemed to be of the value of 100 and the Quota namely the value sufficient to secure the return of a Candidate was determined as 672. The respondent was declared elected during the first count having secured 90 votes of the value of 900. His surplus was the largest. His election was not challenged before the Election Tribunal established under the Pakistan Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules, 1976.
5. The petitioner has challenged the election of the respondent on two grounds. First, that having signed the Roll of Advocates of the Supreme Court on 17-4-1995 he was not, on the nomination day, qualified for being elected as a member and, secondly, he was disqualified to be elected as a member because having been found in possession of four hand grenades and an equal- number of detonators he was convicted by a Military Court and sentenced to 10 months R.I. Which he had undergone.
6. The respondent was served with a pre-admission notice and in response he filed detailed comments duly supported by an affidavit and documents. The gist of the comments is that the writ petition is tainted with mala fide because the petitioner had earlier filed a Writ Petition (No,656 of 1996) in this Court in regard to proceedings of professional misconduct pending against him before the Tribunal N.-W.F.P. Bar Council and had impleaded the respondent also as a party but it was dismissed on 30-6-1997 and that the respondent was fully qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council because he was enrolled as an Advocate of the Supreme Court by the Pakistan Bar Council with effect from 22-4-1881 and his name was entered at Serial No,1003 off the Roll of the Advocates of the Supreme Court of Pakistan but at the stage of filing of the nomination papers it had transpired that he had not signed the Roll of the Advocates of the Supreme Court maintained by the Supreme Court on which he had submitted an application before Honourable the Chief Justice of Pakistan for permission to sign the Roll of Advocates and condonation of delay which was allowed and the Roll of Advocates was signed by him and that his conviction by the Military Court was illegal and unfounded and in any event he was not convicted for an offence involving moral turpitude.
7. It was contended by the petitioner that the respondent was not qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council because the last date for filing of proposals for election was 30-3-1995 whereas he had signed the Roll of Advocates of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 17-4- 1995 and the permission granted for the purpose by the Supreme Court was silent about the condonation of delay which meant that the delay was not condoned. Reference was made to Clause (a) of section 11-A of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973 which provides that a person shall be qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council if he is on the roll of Advocates of the Supreme Court maintained by the Pakistan Bar Council, as also to the proviso to section 23 (ibid) according to which no person shall call himself or hold himself out as an advocate of the Supreme Court until he has signed the roll of Advocates kept under the rules of the Supreme Court. It was further contended that the respondent was also disqualified to be elected as a member because under Clause (b) of section 11-B of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973 a person is disqualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council if he has been convicted for an offence involving moral turpitude and the offence for which the respondent was convicted by the Military Court being brutal had overtones of moral turpitude.
8. The respondent, on the other hand, based his arguments on his parawise comments and their accompaniments. He argues at the outset that the bona fides of the petitioner were questionable and he had not approached the Court with clear hands because he had filed this petition in the wake of dismissal of his earlier writ petition, in which he was also impleaded as a party, challenging the proceedings for professional misconduct pending before the learned Tribunal N.-W.F.P. Bar Council. Reference was made to the judgment dated 30-6-1997 of this Court in Writ Petition No,656 of 1996. He further argued that he was fully qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council within the contemplation of section 11-A of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973 as his name appeared on the roll of Advocates of the Supreme Court maintained by the Pakistan Bar Council. Besides, his enrolment as an Advocate of the Supreme Court was not under challenge and there was marked difference between the right to appeal and plead before the Supreme Court and the right to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council and above all when the inadvertent omission had come to light he had moved an application for permission to sign the roll of Advocates of the Supreme Court and condonation of delay which was graciously allowed by Honourable the Chief Justice of Pakistan and as such the technical defect stood removed retrospectively. It was also argued that the disqualification set up by the petitioner was a figment of his imagination because when Martial Law was imposed on 5th July, 1977 he had not only opposed it but had also conducted more than 1,000 cases of the detenus without charging any fee as a result of which he was involved in a false case in this manner that on 28-4-1978 at about 10-30 p.m. While he was taking tea in a hotel at Rawalpindi alongwith two friends he was informed by the police that they had recovered three hand-grenades on opening the dickey of the Taxi in which he had travelled from Peshawar. The police arrested him, his two companions and the Taxi driver and while he and his companions were convicted by the Military Court on 25-7-1978 and sentenced to 10 months' R.I. Each the taxi driver was acquitted. Feeling aggrieved he had filed a writ petition in the Lahore High Court and during the pendency of the same the sentence was partly remitted and he was released from Central Jail Peshawar on 22-12-1978. In any case the offence for which he was convicted and sentenced by the Military Court did not fall within the purview of an offence involving moral turpitude. Reference was made to the definition of the expression 'moral turpitude' contained in the Black's Law Dictionary.
9. The qualification for membership of Pakistan Bar Council in question is contained in Clause (a) of section 11-A of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973. It reads as under: "A person shall be qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council, if he---
(a) is on the roll of advocates of the Supreme Court maintained by the Pakistan Bar Council."
10 A bare reading of the above provision would show that a person whose name is entered in the roll of the Advocates of the Supreme Court maintained by the Pakistan Bar Council is qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council. The legislative intention is plain and manifest.
Quite obviously, if any controversy arises in this context it has to be resolved in the light of the roll of Advocates maintained by the Pakistan Bar Council, which is prepared and maintained under section 23 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973. The name of the respondent is admittedly borne on the said roll of Advocates of the Supreme Court, therefore, he was qualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council. It is true that the respondent had not signed the roll of advocates kept under the Rules of the Supreme Court before the date fixed for filing of proposals for election although he was enrolled as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan by Pakistan Bar Council with effect from 22-4-1981. However, the omission, which appears to have occurred due to an oversight or a slip of the memory caused by professional engagements, cannot be blown out of proportion because on getting an inkling thereof the respondent had submitted an application before Honourable the Chief Justice of Pakistan on 4-4-1995 for permission to sign the roll of Advocates maintained by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and for condonation of delay in signing the same which was granted as is evident from Letter No,200- T/Adv/95-SCA. Dated 13-4-1995 of the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan addressed to him. No action was taken against the respondent by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for appearing and pleading before the Court without signing the Roll of Advocates, therefore, it goes without saying that the delay in signing the Roll was condoned. Resultantly, the. Roll of Advocates maintained by the Supreme Court shall be deemed to have been signed by the respondent on the date of his enrolment. The proviso to section 23 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973 is, thus, not attracted.
11. The disqualification - related contention is based on Clause (b) of section 11-B of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973 which is worded thus: "A person shall be disqualified to be elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council if he---
(a) ..
(b) has been convicted for an offence involving moral turpitude.
12. The expression "moral turpitude" has not been defined in the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973 or any other Statute, therefore, we will turn to the Black's Law Dictionary and the case-law. According to the Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, the expression means as under: "The act of baseness, vileness, or the depravity in private and social duties which man owes to his fellow man, or to society in general contrary to accepted and customary rule of right and duty between man and man. Act or behaviour that gravely violates moral sentiment or accepted moral standards of community and is a morally culpable quality held to be present in some criminal offences as distinguished from others. The quality of a crime involving grave infringement of the moral sentiment of the community as distinguished from statutory mala prohibita. "
13. Adverting to the case-law on the subject we find that in Baleshwar Singh v. District Magistrate and Collector, Banaras and other AIR 1959 All. 71 it was observed that expression means anything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals. It implies depravity and wickedness of character or disposition of the person charged with particular conduct. In Mangan v. Chhakki Lal and others AIR 1963 All. 527 it was held that no absolute standard can be laid down for deciding whether a particular offence is to be considered on involving moral turpitude. The question will necessarily depend on the circumstances in which the offence is committed. It is not every punishable act that can be considered to be an offence involving moral turpitude. The tests which should ordinarily be applied and which should in most cases be sufficient for judging whether a certain offence does or does not involve moral turpitude appear to be (1) whether the act leading to a conviction was such as could shock the moral conscience of society in general, (2) whether the motive which led to the act was a based one and (3) whether on account of the act having been committed the perpetrator could be considered to be of a depraved character or a person who was to be looked down upon by the society. In Risal Singh v. Chandgi Ram and others AIR 1966 Pb. 393 it was held that conviction under section 19(f) of the Indian Arms Act for possessing an unlicensed revolver implies no depravity or wickedness of character or disposition which would involve any moral turpitude.
14. The tests laid down in AIR 1963 Allahabad 527 were approved in Saeed Ahmad Khan v.
Government of N.-W.F.P. And 4 others PLD 1989 Pesh. 112 with the observations that the Legislature in their wisdom have refrained from specifying as to which offences do and which do not involve moral turpitude. The standards of morality differ from people to people and from era to era. An act of commission or omission may shock the morality of one society but it may not be so with another society.
15. Keeping in view the tests highlighted in AIR 1963 All. 527 and PLD 1989 Pesh. 112 we have no hesitation in holding that the offence for which the respondent was convicted and sentenced by the Military Court did not involve moral turpitude.
16. This brings us to the contention raised by the respondent with regard to the bona fides of the petitioner. The contention does not lack merit. The writ petition in hand was indeed filed after dismissal of Writ Petition No,656 of 1996, arising from proceedings for professional misconduct entailed by a complaint against the petitioner involving a money matter, in which the petitioner had not only impleaded the respondent as a party but had also alleged that the respondent had contested election for the office of President, Peshawar High Court Bar Association in the Year 1994 and he had opposed him with lot of vigour and zeal on which the respondent had made a public announcement that he would not allow him to remain in the Bar Association. After winning the election the respondent had obtained a complaint against him from one of his close relatives and forwarded it to the N.-W.F.P. Bar Council in his capacity as President High Court Bar Association. It would, thus, follow that this writ petition has been filed for redressal of a personal grievance and not for the vindication of any public right. It was held in Dr. Kamal Hussain and 7 others v.
Muhammad Sirajul Islam and others PLD 1969 SC 42 that the grant of relief in writ jurisdiction is a matter of discretion, wherein it is quite legitimate on the part of the High Court to test the bona fides of the petitioner to see if he has come with clean hands. A writ of quo warranto in particular is not to issue as a matter of course on sheer technicalities on a doctrinaire approach.
17. The question of laches, which was not raised at the Bar, now remains to be considered. The respondent was declared elected as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council on 4-5-1995 but the petitioner challenged the validity of his election on 16-8-1997. The delay has not been explained muchless satisfactorily. The bona fides of the petitioner are also questionable. The petition is, therefore, squarely hit by the principle of laches. In holding this view we are fortified in the observations made in Syed Ali Raza Asad Abidi v. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, President of Pakistan and another PLD 1991 Lah. 420 that laches would not generally apply in cases of quo warranto but then the Court can also not ignore the application of this principle if the attendant circumstances are such which militate against the bona fides of the petitioner.
18. For the reason aforesaid, his writ petition is dismissed. In limine a alongwith Civil Miscellaneous No,1759 of 1997 for grant of interim relief.