Mandviwalla's motion against NAB chief: Senate session being requisitioned

ISLAMABAD: Senate session being requisitioned to take up privilege motion moved by Deputy Chairman Senate Saleem Mandviwalla against Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Former Justice Javed Iqbal and other senior officials of accountability watchdog is expected to be summoned this week.

Talking to Business Recorder, the deputy chairman Senate confirmed that the requisitioned Senate session is likely this week to take up the matter. He said he would not withdraw his privilege motion against the NAB chief and other senior NAB officials. "This privilege motion is not worth withdrawing from," the deputy Senate chief said.

To a query, he said apart from the chairman NAB, Director General NAB Rawalpindi Irfan Mangi and other relevant officials would be summoned in connection with the privilege motion. He said the requisitioned session's one-point agenda would be to take up the said privilege motion.

"The Parliament will not tolerate any kind of blackmail and harassment against its members," Mandviwalla said. "If a parliamentarian, who holds a highly respectable position in the Upper House of the Parliament, can fall victim to NAB's highhandedness, what about the common people," the deputy chairman Senate said while dismissing any possibility of a 'reconciliation' between him and NAB officials. "It's not personal. It's about principles," he said.

Under the related constitutional provisions, a requisitioned session of the Senate/National Assembly can be convened by the chairman Senate/speaker National Assembly (instead of the President of Pakistan) if not less than one-fourth of the total members of the House concerned sign the requisition to convene the session.

Article 54 (3) reads, "Summoning and prorogation of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) on a requisition signed by not less than one-fourth of the total membership of the National Assembly, the speaker shall summon the National Assembly to meet, at such time and place as he thinks fit, within fourteen days of the receipt of the requisition; and when the speaker has summoned the Assembly only he may prorogue it." Although, the said article mentions only National Assembly, it is equally applicable to the Senate in the light of Article 61 of the Constitution. It reads "The provisions of clauses (2) to (7) of Article 53, clauses (2) and (3) of Article 54 and Article 55 shall apply to the Senate as they apply to the National Assembly and, in their application to the Senate, shall have effect as if references therein to the National Assembly, speaker and deputy speaker were references, respectively, to the Senate, chairman and deputy chairman....."

Under normal circumstances, a session of the Parliament is summoned by the President of Pakistan. Article 54 (1) reads, "Summoning and prorogation of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) - (1) The president may, from time to time, summon either House or both Houses or Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) in joint sitting to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit and may also prorogue the same."

On Sunday, the deputy chairman Senate held a hard-hitting press conference in which he lashed out at the NAB chief and other senior officials in connection with fake bank accounts case against him. "NAB is an organisation that patronises blackmail and extortion. It is an organisation which violates human rights. I have decided to highlight NAB's human rights violations at every international forum," he said.

The deputy Senate chief even went to the extent to announce that he would take "NAB to United Nations, European Union and other international forums." And he announced moving a privilege motion in Senate Secretariat against the NAB chief.

Hours after Mandviwalla's press conference, chairman NAB took notice of the issue, halted the proceedings of the case and sought record of the case from NAB Rawalpindi. The next day, the deputy chairman Senate met the NAB chief at his office where the latter reportedly assured the former to 'personally' look into his complaints. However, the meeting did not apparently prove fruitful as Mandviwalla announced after the meeting that a special Senate session would be requisitioned to take up one-point agenda, his privilege motion.

Few days back, NAB informed an accountability court that it had frozen 3.1 million shares of different companies registered in the name of Mandviwalla with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in connection with the fake accounts case. The case is pending.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020