PA passes four bills, rejecting amendments proposed by Opp

LAHORE

Punjab Assembly on Thursday passed four bills namely, Punjab Criminal Prosecution Service (Constitution, Functions and Powers) (Amendment) Bill 2016, Parks and Horticulture Authority (Amendment) Bill 2016, Punjab Animals Feed Stuff and Compound Feed Bill 2016 and Punjab Halal Development Agency Bill 2016, by rejecting all the amendments proposed by the Opposition parties.

The House also began general debate on agriculture sector before the proceedings were adjourned for Friday.

Earlier, the government survived embarrassment of once again failing to complete the quorum in the House when opposition member Ahsan Riaz Fatyana indicated lack of quorum. However, after ringing bells for five minutes, the Treasury benches managed to bring the House back into quorum. The government had been facing embarrassment over quorum for four consecutive days until a couple of days ago.

Ahsan Riaz Fatyana wanted the House to bring his resolution into debate which had called into question the dual nationalities of a number of persons occupying high government offices especially the judges and bureaucrats, and demanded that the issue be brought into debate on print and electronic media. He was annoyed that Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan had rejected his resolution without consideration using his discretionary powers.

Fatyana rose on a point of order and insisted that the resolution was rejected without any justification. He stated that dual nationality issues of members of parliament, provincial assemblies and politicians were openly debated on electronic and print media, bringing embarrassment and insults to them.

But, he said, dual nationalities of judges and bureaucrats were never discussed which, he argued, amounted to grave injustice with the elected representatives of the people and unjustified. He asked, if judges and bureaucrats were not answerable to the people or if they were sacred cows that their dual nationalities could not be taken up at any public forum.

But the Speaker did not allow him to speak further and asked him to take his seat. Fatyana continued to repeat his demand but the Speaker switched off his microphone. Annoyed at this, he indicated that the House was not in quorum.