government may declare any place to be a police station for the purpose of the Act and each matter brought before the court under this Act shall be disposed of within three months from the date of reference being made.
The House also unanimously passed the Local Government (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2015. As per the amendments, the nazim and naib nazim of the district council or tehsil or town council, as the case may be, shall be elected by the votes of the majority of the total membership of the council. If no nazim or naib nazim secures majority in the first poll, a second poll shall be held between the members. If the candidates get equal number of votes, further two sittings with interval of one week in between, shall be held and if none of them secures a majority of votes, the council shall stand dissolved and the matter shall be referred to the Election Commission for holding fresh elections.
Two more bills, the Establishment of Information Technology Board (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (Amendment) Bill 2015 were also unanimously passed before the Speaker adjourned the session till September 7.
Earlier, PTI MPA Mehmood Jan, on a privilege motion, told the House that the standing committee on health called secretary health time and again but he didn’t turn up. He said that the committee once postponed its meeting as a mark of protest and asked the secretary to appear before it, but he again did not come despite the health minister’s assurance. The lawmaker argued that the secretary health had insulted the committee and its members.
He appealed to the Speaker to refer the matter to the privilege committee as it was a matter of the members’ prestige. Health Minister Shahram Khan said he would arrange the secretary’s meeting with the mover if he withdrew his motion.
However, Mehmood Jan insisted that the matter should be referred to the privilege committee. The Speaker agreed and referred the matter to the privilege committee, saying that appearance before the standing committees should be the top priority of the government officers as well as ministers.