Serious constitutional oversight: Chief secy Balochistan heads parliamentary panel on Covid-19

ISLAMABAD: To overcome the Coronavirus pandemic, a unique political and parliamentary matter has come into existence with a notification of Services and General Administration of Balochistan government on April 6 according which Chief Secretary Balochistan Captain (retd) Fazeel Asghar, who is part of the Services of Pakistan, was appointed head of 13-member Parliamentary Committee.

According to the notification, six provincial ministers of Balochistan and six members of Balochistan Assembly were made members of the Parliamentary Committee, which would be headed by chief secretary Balochistan. The Parliamentary Committee on Coronavirus in the federal government is headed by Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaisar and just four days ago Speaker Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, under his chairmanship, formed an 11-member committee of Punjab Assembly on Coronavirus.

But in Balochistan, instead of giving the chairmanship of the committee to the Speaker or Deputy Speaker Balochistan Assembly or to any other member of the Balochistan Provincial Assembly, a novel way was adopted, which could be called as an unparliamentary tradition by giving the chairmanship to the Chief Secretary. The members of the Balochistan Parliamentary Committee on Coronavirus comprised Chief Secretary Balochistan Capt (retd) Fazeel Asghar as a Convener while the other members of the committee comprised Provincial Minister for Irrigation Tariq Magsi, Provincial Minister for Food Department and Population Welfare Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran, Provincial Home Minister Zia Langove, Provincial Minister for Education Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind, Provincial Minister for Social Welfare and Non-formal Education Abdullah Baloch, Provincial Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Abdul Khaliq Hazara, Asghar Khan MPA, Malik Sikandar Khan MPA, Naseer Shewani MPA, Naseerull Zaidi MPA, Mir Gurram Bugti MPA and Syed Ahsan Shah MPA. Constitutional experts termed the Balochistan Parliamentary Committee as unconstitutional. The ex-chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani expressed his serious reservations on the notification and asked the chief minister to withdraw it, calling it an oversight.

Rabbani said a parliamentary committee cannot be headed by a person who is not a member of the House under the rules and international parliamentary practice. He said the committee consists of seven provincial ministers, who in the Warrant of Precedent are placed above the chief secretary. Similarly, the committee also consists of six MPAs and it is not appropriate that elected members should be made subservient to the civil bureaucracy. Terming the parliamentary committee unheard off in parliamentary practice, he said it amounts to demeaning the democratic process.

The former chairman Senate said he wanted the oversight to be brought to the notice of the chief minister, while terming the committee a slur on institutions created by the constitution as civil bureaucrats are meant to assist such committees.