Chairman of Senate Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari came up with an interesting clarification on Thursday about the recently passed 24th Amendment Bill, saying it will automatically lapse if it was not tabled in the National Assembly before its dissolution.
It was Mohsin Leghari - an independent senator form Punjab - said the fate of the controversial bill was written on the wall. The 23rd Constitutional Amendment Bill is yet to be passed by the National Assembly while the government got 24th amendment hastily passed from Senate.
"How is it possible to bring 24th constitutional amendment when the 23rd amendment is yet to sail through the National Assembly?...both legislations will go down the drain automatically as the assembly will be dissolved on March 16," he added. When Senator Islamuddin Sheikh, PPP's chief whip in the Senate, retorted without knowing legal complications, Leghari insisted that the law did not permit the new assembly to take up pending legislations. "I'm not convinced Mr chairman...this is a serious business and must be dealt in a serious manner", he said.
This forced the chairman to seek help from the green constitutional compendium, which helped both parties to heave a sigh of relief as the chair read out Rule 76 and Clause 3 of the Constitution. Bokhari said: "A Bill pending in the National Assembly, or a Bill which having been passed by the National Assembly is pending in the Senate, shall lapse on the dissolution of the National Assembly."
JUDICIARY BASHING After the court banned Senator Faisal Raza Abidi from taking part in TV talk shows, where he continuously targeted the apex court and its decisions, another PPP stalwart Saeed Ghani appeared to have taken up the task of maligning the superior courts.
Speaking on a point of order, Ghani lashed out against the apex court's judges and accused them of targeting the PPP while being extra kind to Punjab. He said that the suo motu actions being taken by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was becoming dangerous, which if not taken curbed by parliament, would be a matter of concern for the future governments.
Quoting an observation made by apex court judges during a case that had the court sent the government packing on October 12, things could not have been this worse, the PPP jiyala said: "I want to ask you [judges] under which Constitution can you dismiss a democratically elected government?"
"The observations made by these judges will turn into a curse for us if they go unnoticed...why these suo motos are Sindh-specific, why do (judges) not take notice of incidents taking place in other provinces," he said. He also accused courts of discrimination, saying that the Sri Lankan cricket team was targeted by terrorists in Lahore while major terror strikes were mounted against the GHQ and ISI and FIA offices but this did not move the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice.
"Judges must not exceed their limits...when Monis Ilahi and Musa Ali Gilani requested to change FIA investigators probing their cases, the court paid no heed to their pleas (but) when it was Arsalan Iftikhar, the whole investigating team was changed...is this what you call justice?" he said. The house was adjourned to meet again on Friday at 10am.
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