Nothing worth the name has changed in the attitude of the members of the Sindh Assembly toward decorum of the august House, after five years of rigorous exercise and education in parliamentary decency, as it was pandemonium, as usual, that caused abrupt adjournment of the session on Thursday.
Before adjourning the house, Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussein Shah repeatedly asked the members to listen to him or reach consensus on whether adjournment motion listed in the order of the day at serial number VI should be taken up first or they should take up government bills listed at serial number VIII and then come back to the adjournment motion.
The treasury and the opposition insisted on their respective stand and continued to exchange heated arguments on the prioritisation of 'whether or not' question. The members of the Opposition as only the PPP was present in the house, finding no support from the Speaker or getting any signal of reconciliation from the treasury continued to disobey the Speaker. Sassoi Palejo of the PPP led them on her own despite the presence of the deputy leader of the opposition, Makhdoom Jameeluzzaman, in the House.
In complete disorder in the House where each member chose on his/her own to express his/her views, on the subject, it was only Speaker Shah who was to listen to all these mixed voices. Unable to bring order in the House, he announced adjournment of the session to meet on Friday at 9 am.
However, during a brief period when the Speaker had retired to his chamber, Naseer Khan Khosa, one of the four chairmen, presided over the session. As long as he remained in the chair of the Speaker there was no one to guide the members and remind them of the various provisions of the rules of business regarding decency of conduct in the House. There was no one to tell how to conduct the proceedings.
During this period of chaos and turmoil Law Minister Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhry moved a motion to suspend the question hour, listed in the order of the day at serial number III, and sought permission of the House to present government bills listed at serial number VIII.
When the motion was carried and when the chairman announced the suspension of the question hour could not be heard, but the press saw the law minister presenting government bills.
Later, the law minister told journalist that out of seven government bills two bills could be adopted: Bill Number 1 of 2007 - The Sindh Finance (Amendment) Bill, 2006 and Bill number 2 of 2007 - The Sindh Speaker's and Deputy Speaker's (salaries, allowances and privileges) Bill, 2006. The contents of these bills were not readily available to the press.
Earlier, when the session began at 11 am instead of at 10 am as per schedule, prayers were offered for those who had died during June-September 2007 in various accidents.
The chairman of the Standing Committee on Food and Agriculture, Ali Anwar Mahar, presented report on agriculture in the House. Speaker has asked Mahar to move a resolution containing recommendations of the committee on Friday.
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