ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani on Tuesday asked the Leader of the House in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq to inform the law and justice minister or a minister in-charge to brief the House today (Wednesday) on the government’s decision to put the regulatory bodies under the ministries.
Rabbani questioned, “The regulatory bodies have been handed over to the lines ministers; don’t you think with all this, the very concept of a regulatory body comes to an end.” The House echoed with a demand from the PPP, asking Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to step down, following the Justice Faez Isa Inquiry Commission report.
Law and Justice Minister Zahid Hamid moved ‘The Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Bill, 2016’ in the House, which was referred to the concerned committee for deliberations and report. The House has already adopted the opposition’s Panama Papers Inquiry Bill, 2016 last week that was opposed by the treasury benches.
According to the statement of objects and reasons of the government bill, the existing law relating to appointment of commissions of inquiry and empowering them for the purpose is the Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1956 (VI of 1956).
The act has been invoked for setting up fact-finding commissions on a number of important national issues in the past. However, on some matters, the need has been perceived for a commission with greater powers than those that can be conferred under the act.
“It is, therefore, considered desirable that a new law be enacted enabling the government to confer additional powers on a commission of inquiry where the nature of the issue is being inquired into. Accordingly, the Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Bill, 2016 has been prepared to achieve the objective,” it added.
The Senate also passed ‘The Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils (Amendment) Bill, 2016’. The bill was moved by Zahid Hamid.
Rabbani also found an adjournment motion in order and fixed a debate on the commission report in the House on Wednesday (today). The adjournment motion moved by 14 opposition lawmakers belonging to PPP, MQM, PkMAP, a government ally, was moved by the PPP Senator Sherry Rehman and admitted by the chair.
While speaking on the admissibility of the motion, Sherry criticised the government’s alleged inaction against terrorist organisations and suggested that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan should accept responsibility and resign as the report had exposed the latter’s ineffectiveness and his links with banned outfits.
Speaking on a point of public importance, Senator Azam Khan Swati of PTI slammed the Ministry of Interior for cancelling the visit of Department for International Development (DFID) head in Pakistan Richard Montgomery to Peshawar, where he was to meet the chief minister and speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. Swati contended that cancellation of DFID’s head visit to Peshawar on December 06 under the pretext of no objection certificate (NoC) showed that the government wanted to centralise the powers, which was a violation of 18th constitutional amendment.
“The KP Assembly has unanimously passed a resolution asking the federal government to withdraw the condition of acquiring no objection certificate for foreign delegates to visit the province, and we condemn this act of the federal government to stop the foreigners’ entry to KP,” he added.
PTI senator said that there was a need to give more administrative and economic powers to provinces, but the federal government was discouraging foreign delegates from visiting KP. State Minister for Interior Balighur Rehman rejected the notion that the DFID head was stopped by the Interior Ministry, saying there was no such bar on him.
“The DFID head had neither applied for an NoC nor any such record exists with the ministry that he was ever stopped from visiting Peshawar. There are some places in Pakistan where entry of foreigners is not allowed,” he said.
“The places where foreigners are not allowed to travel include Cherat, Nowshera Cant and other sensitive places under the orders of Defence Ministry, which issues directives under Foreigners Order, 1951,” the minister noted. He said that any foreigner could not be prohibited from traveling anywhere in Pakistan as there were laid down rules for movement of foreigners.
Speaking on a point of public importance, Senator Samina Abid of PTI urged the government to honour the martyred deputy commissioner Chitral Osama Ahmad Warraich, who lost his life in recent PIA plane crash along his wife and a ten-month old infant daughter.
She said that the young bureaucrat, who embraced martyrdom at young age of 31, changed the destiny of the backward valley by initiating different development projects with the help of development organisations, for which the people of Chitral still mourn his death.
Rabbani directed the government to pursue the matter as to what could be done for the young officer, who embraced martyrdom in the line of duty. He also asked the leader of the House to consult the defence minister for starting C-130 flights for Chitral, the issue which was raised by Samina, as people have been stranded after the closure of Lowari Top. The Senate referred the issue of Area Study Centre at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad to the Committee on Cabinet to recommend how to save the institute from extinction.