President Mamnoon Hussain on Thursday summoned a joint sitting of parliament on Monday at 5pm, in which the government would move the bill to convert Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) into a private company ahead of entity''s privatisation under sub rule (7) of rule 154 of the Rules of procedure and conduct of Business in the National Assembly 2007 that the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (Conversion) Bill 2016 as passed by the National Assembly and rejected by the Senate, be referred to the joint sitting for consideration and passage."
After the passage of motion as such, the joint session of the two houses would be summoned on shortest notice and the session of the lower house would be adjourned and again summoned along with the upper house''s for a joint sitting.
Ahead of a joint session, a meeting of all opposition political parties with opposition leader in National Assembly Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah in the chair was held in parliament house on Thursday morning to take stock of the situation.
The meeting was attended by parliamentary leaders of all political parties including deputy parliamentary leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Shah Mehmood Qureshi. It was decided that the government must give a detailed briefing to the house before what they said "bulldozing of the PIA bill."
The meeting also discussed the possible strategy of the opposition with regard to a joint session which has especially been convened to pass PIA privatisation bill. The opposition political parties agreed that they would place on record that privatization of the national flag carrier is in no way acceptable.
After the meeting, Shah Mehmood of PTI told reporters that opposition has demanded the government to give a detailed briefing over privatization of the national airline, adding "we would chalk out a fresh strategy after the briefing."
Qureshi also said the government is hell bent to proceed with the privatization of PIA without incorporating the recommendations made by the opposition political parties.