LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly passed a resolution on Wednesday, expressing unhappiness over the abuse of discretionary powers by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in contradiction to the fundamental human rights and dignity of the civil servants, and requested the federal government to take notice and action against these actions and to discuss the matter in the parliament.
The resolution presented by Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah stated that the House deeply resented all the actions taken by NAB in contradiction to the fundamental human rights and human dignity entitled to an individual by the Constitution which not only respected these rights but also vowed to establish them. The resolution deemed unlawful and immoral, the harassment, humiliation, defamation campaign and extrajudicial character assassination of the civil service officials.
The resolution mentioned, “This House strongly demands that every institution, including NAB, should comply with the Constitution of Pakistan which promises fundamental human rights and honour. In this regard, the House recommends that adequate measures should be taken to bring this issue up for discussion on the floor of the National Assembly of Pakistan.” “Furthermore, amendments should be introduced in the NAB Ordinance 1999 especially in the domain of ‘Plea Bargain’ (as to expunge it because it nothing more than an instrument of providing safe exit-strategy to those guilty of corruption and taking bribes).”
The resolution was passed in the assembly with the opposition alliance not present as they had not returned after PTI MPA Asif Mahmood pointed out the quorum and it was found short. The assembly session was marred by the opposition’s repeated disruptions and protests, trying their best not to allow the assembly agenda to be completed.
The opposition had not allowed the assembly business to take place for the past two sessions and it appeared as if the government had made special arrangements to prohibit any quorum shortage, as the number of PML-N MPAs in attendance was significantly high.
Earlier, the assembly session started 55 minutes late and the Q&A session had to observe a 20 minute break after the opposition benches objected to the fact that the agriculture secretary was not present in the House on the day dedicated to questions regarding his department.
The session resumed after the secretary’s arrival, While Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Asif Manzoor Mohal did a good job handling questions, the secretary appeared clumsy and all at sea.
As soon as the Q&A session ended, the opposition leader, Mehmood-ur-Rashid raised a point of order, in which he pointed out the interview of Faisal Subhan and started hurling insults and allegations regarding a mass corruption nexus of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. He demanded that the Chief Minister should come to the floor of the House and explain his position.
The opposition members and the leader then left their seats and started protesting in front of the speaker’s chair, chanting slogans and calling the chief minister a dacoit and thief. They tore up the assembly agenda documents and tossed them over the assembly officials, while the treasury benches tried to match them up with slogans of their own, describing Imran Khan a drug addict.
This went on for almost 20 minutes after which Arif Abbasi of PTI pointed the quorum out for the first time and it was found short. However, the quorum was complete after the bell-ringing ritual and Minister Human Rights and Minority Affairs Khali Tahir Sindhu introduced the Punjab Charities Bill 2018, as recommended by Standing Committee on Home for the consideration of the house to be passed.
The opposition leader had proposed a number of amendments to the proposed bill. However, when given the opportunity to debate those amendments, the opposition leader and other members used their speaking time to bash the chief minister and call him names. Arif Abbasi, while trying to pull the mic closer to his mouth as he stood away from his desk, damaged the microphone, which the speaker counted as an offence and told that the matter be taken up later.
The deafening ruckus continued as Mian Aslam Iqbal termed the bill another effort of the PML-N Government to award lucrative positions to their blue-eyed bureaucrats even after their retirement and a way to legitimise a nexus of corruption.
The speaker continued to give the opposition members their due share of time to speak while advising them to debate the contents of the bill instead of delivering political speeches, which the opposition members did not care about.
The quorum was once again pointed out by Asif Mahmood and was found short. However, once it was completed, the opposition members never returned to the assembly floor and the bill was passed as all the amendment proposals were considered withdrawn due to the absence of their movers. Later, the session was adjourned till 9am today (Thursday).
