ISLAMABAD: The Senate Monday again failed to pass ‘The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017’ as Government’s 26, Opposition’s 46 and all Fata members remained absent. Only 16 members were present on treasury side while six senators were seen sitting on opposition benches. A maximum 59 senators were present during the proceedings, while 38 were absent and seven were on leave. However, when the constitutional amendment was to be taken up, only 22 were left in the House. The House could not take up the bill, which, when adopted and signed into law by the President, will pave the way for the delimitation of constituencies by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on the basis of provisional data collected during the national census. A two-third majority i.e. 69 senators in the 104-member House is mandatory for the adoption of the constitutional amendment bill. However, the House had to defer it, as only 22 legislators were present at that time, as it was a private members day and the bill was on order No 32 of the 34-point orders of the day. After exhausting almost the entire agenda of the day, Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani after the Maghrib prayer break, asked Leader of the House in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq what the House should do with agenda item number 32 and 33 — ‘The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017’. Zafarul Haq requested the chair to defer the bill till tomorrow (Wednesday) as the government could not ensure the required number of the senators to vote on the bill. The chair deferred the bill accordingly. The treasury senators, who were present in the House, include Raja Zafarul Haq, Kamran Michael, Javed Abbasi, Ayesha Raza Farooq, Muhammad Hamza, Hamdullah, Abdul Qayyum, Nisar Muhammad, Ghous Bakhsh Niazi, Mir Kabir, Sajid Mir, Zafarullah Khan Dhandla, Saud Majeed and Taj Muhammad Afridi. The PML-N has 26 senators in the House, PPP is in the lead with 27, MQM has eight, PTI seven, ANP six, JUI-F five, PML-Q four, National Party and PkMAP three each, BNP-M, PML-F and JI one each and 10 independents, who are in caucuses with the PPP. On opposition benches, at one moment, the PPP’s Taj Haider, Farhatullah Babar, Karim Khawaja, PTI’s Shibli Faraz, BNP-Mengal’s Dr Jahanzeb Jamaldini, Shahi Syed of ANP and Col (R) Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM-P were present. Law and Justice Minister Zahid Hamid was seen in the House who also left after realising that the required numbers to pass the bill were not around. Later, speaking on a point of public importance, the JUI-F Senator Hamdullah, PPP’s Farhatullah Babar and Sajid Mir of the PML-N hinted that the Islamabad protesters led by Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi might be dancing to the tune of people “involved in enforced disappearance of people”. Farhatullah Babar called for disbanding the present Commission on Enforced Disappearances and replacing it with a new one with experts in investigations as it members who should also be required to make its report public. He was taking part in discussion on a point of public importance raised by senators Hamdullah and Sajid Mir, who said that although the missing cleric had returned home the identity of kidnappers remained a mystery that needed to be resolved. “The identity of the kidnappers will never be known until the Commission talk to the victims recovered, investigate their ordeal and register FIRs against the perpetrators identified by them,” he said.” The Commission is vested with these powers under the law but during the last six years of existence it had failed to do so,” he noted. The Commission, he pointed out, takes credit for having recovered over 2,000 missing persons during the last six years, but it has nothing to show by way of pursuing investigations or filing FIR against individuals or institutions found involved in enforced disappearances. He said that the law had since been amended to empower the Commission to make public its report directly without requiring government approval and asked what has prevented the Commission from making its periodic reports public. He also called for making public the report of the first 2010 Commission under late Justice Mansoor Kamal, which worked for only one year. Separately, on the issue of investigation in attack of journalist Ahmad Noorani, he said that reportedly geo-fencing and CCTV cameras had failed to help in the investigations. He said that investigating those who had alleged in the print and social media that the attack was linked to affair with a female student might be helpful in reaching some conclusion. Hamdullah said that a missing cleric of his party returned home safe and sound after the Senate took up the matter, but the identity of kidnappers remained a mystery that needed to be resolved. “Islam doesn’t allow any foul language, but Maulvi Khadim, who is a religious leader, is using foul language against all the religious and political leadership which tarnished the image of all religious scholars,” he said without recalling his past track record of using derogatory language against women. The JUI-F cleric also termed the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat issue a ‘collective mistake’ of the Parliament, which some of the senators declared incorrect, saying the bill was passed by the National Assembly and then it was rectified by the Senate. “The Senate pointed out the mistake and then it was rectified, so the whole Parliament must not be blamed for it,” said Ghaus Baksh Niazi of the PML-N after Hamdullah called upon Islamabad protesters to call off the strike. Babar expressed fears that protesters and those involved in enforced disappearance might be having same connection. Earlier, Rabbani reprimanded Minister for Water Resources Syed Javed Ali Shah after he said that constitution is a ‘man-made document’, which the Centre can amend to facilitate the provinces in order to make concerted efforts to deal with the country’s looming water crisis. It earned the ire of Rabbani, who said: “You speak the language of a military dictator General Pervez Musharraf, who had exactly said what your are talking about”. The minister said water scarcity is purely an issue of humanity, which must be given top priority, adding that after the 18th Amendment, it is completely a provincial subject, and the Centre cannot interfere in matters of the provinces. On this, Rabbani proceeded with other agenda items by switching off the microphone of the minister without listening to him any further despite repeated calls that he be given an opportunity to clarify his point. The controversy started after the minister proposed amendment to the constitution while winding up a debate on a motion by the PPP Senator Sherry Rehman that called for formulating a strategy for desalinating sea water for industrial and domestic consumption in view of likely water scarcity in the country and establish resources, machinery and expertise required in this regard. Speaking on the motion, Sherry said that the country is likely to dry up by 2025 as there is no national water policy in place. Other senators also called for building small water reservoirs in order to preserve rainwater, besides construing big dams to overcome water shortage in the country. Speaking on a motion by Senator Mashhadi, the senator himself and Sherry, Rehman Malik, Usman Kakar and Azam Musakhail decried the fact that no real effort was being made to discourage the increasing trend of sale of spurious drugs in Pakistan.
