Finance Bill approved by National Assembly: Supreme Court judges number raised to 29

The National Assembly passed the Finance Bill 2008 on Sunday, June 22, approving the federal budget for financial year 2008-09 with total outlay of over Rs 2 trillion. The clause to increase the number of the Supreme Court judges from 16 to 29 through the Finance Bill was also approved by the government.
Finance Minister Naveed Qamar moved the motion to pass the bill, which was adopted by the House. Despite being present in the House, opposition parties abstained from taking part in the voting, and the government got the Bill passed without any resistance.
Pakistan Muslim League-N, a major coalition partner, did not openly oppose clause 18 regarding increase in the strength of Supreme Court judges. However, a PML-N MNA, Ayaz Amir, later said that no constitutional package had been introduced in the House and the increase in number of judges, through Finance Bill, would be the first ever example in the history of the world, as such a large number of Supreme Court judges do not exist anywhere, neither in America nor in UK.
"What part of the deal is it as the members of this House do not know about", he remarked.
He said that the members of the august House at least should know what was being done in this House. Otherwise, he said, it would be a mockery of the Parliament and the constitution. Later, the House passed the Bill with certain amendments proposed by government to give effect to the Bill from July 1, 2008.
Seven clauses were omitted whereas another six clauses were amended. The omitted clauses were 2, 3, 4, 13, 7, 22 and 27, and the clauses which were amended are clause 8, 15, 16, 24, 26 and clause 28. For the first time, the National Assembly also adopted 51 proposals, out of the 76, forwarded by the Senate, and accepted to consider some others, in principle.
Opposition parties, particularly PML-Q, raised objections over the procedure adopted by the government to increase the number of Supreme Court judges through Finance Bill. PML-Q said it had no objection over the increase in the number of judges, but its procedure was against logic.
"PML has no objection on increasing the number of judges in Supreme Court from 16 to 29. But, we have reservations on the procedure of adopting this clause," said Dr Attiya Inayatullah, on behalf of her party (PML-Q).
She contended that Parliament-both Houses--could revise this strength but the government did not want to take this issue to the Senate and brought this clause through the Finance Bill," she said.
She described this procedure as a step to deprive the Senate of its constitutional right, although the Upper House has equal representation from provinces and is a symbol of federation.
PML-Q chief whip Riaz Hussain Pirzada said Allah Almighty has laid down the principles of justice in the Holy Quran with clear explanation, and quoted Hazrat Ali (AS) that ''coward, weak and greedy cannot dispense justice in the society''.
He referred to the history of Pakistan, saying that masses were deprived of justice due to either the dictators'' greediness and vested interests or the cowardice of political leaders.
He said the nation did not expect that two major parties would use delaying tactics to resolve this issue.
"I reject the philosophy of exploiting justice to save one government, or stay in power. Let us not do it," he added. Shahnaz Sheikh said that being part of the money bill, "We have no objection on increasing number of judges, but disagree with the procedure."
"The issue must have gone to both Houses, and passed through the procedure laid down in the constitution," she added. On almost all other clauses, the opposition parties neither took up any amendment nor opposed any clause, rather abstaining.