In a dramatic turn of events, Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani on Friday urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to take action against Secretary Interior Major Azam Suleman Khan (retd) for not showing up at the Senate despite being summoned repeatedly.

"I had issued instructions that secretary interior should make himself available for the Senate session. But it seems that he has no respect for the Upper House of the Parliament and he is not here today," Sanjrani said while presiding over the Senate session. Recently, the chairman Senate sent a letter to the secretary interior seeking explanation regarding his continued absence despite being summoned in the Senate proceedings. Sanjrani also sought a report, within three days, regarding the secretary's absence but any response from the secretary or the Interior Ministry is yet to be received.

"A government servant is trying to create an atmosphere of mistrust between the government and the Parliament which is extremely condemnable," Sanjrani said. It, he said, has become a trend that the top government functionaries, especially bureaucrats, give no importance to the Parliament.

"We will hold them accountable before this house," he said. However, regardless of the verbal rhetoric, the chairman Senate avoided issuing any written ruling on the matter and, instead, made a verbal request to the PM to initiate action against the secretary interior.

Requesting anonymity, a senator from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) told Business Recorder that the secretary interior did not attend the Senate proceedings keeping in view that no agenda of the Senate's session that was prorogued on Friday concerned the Interior Ministry. "In the absence of any agenda item relevant to the Interior Ministry, the secretary interior was asked to be present at the session which hardly makes any sense," the source said.

He said the chairman Senate is under pressure from the opposition benches to summon senior bureaucrats in demonstration of Parliament's authority. "The opposition senators want Sanjrani to act authoritatively the way the then chairman Senate Raza Rabbani did. Presently, neither Interior Minister Ijaz Shah nor Secretary Interior Azam Suleman shows up in the Senate which is embarrassing for the chairman Senate," the senator said.

The source said the treasury benches make sure that senior officials of relevant ministries, departments and divisions attend Senate sessions keeping in view the agenda items to be taken up in the respective Senate sessions. "The government officials concerned are intimated a few days before the start of any Senate/National Assembly session to be present during the session. But if the chair decides to summon any official in the middle of a session, it becomes difficult to comply with the related instructions given that top bureaucrats who are assigned important positions remain excessively occupied with official businesses."

Meanwhile, the senators from opposition once again criticized the government for promulgating presidential ordinances without bringing them in the Senate, saying this practice is tantamount to bypassing the Senate's authority and undermining the parliamentary supremacy.

However, Leader of the House in Senate Shibli Faraz dismissed the opposition's criticism. Winding up the Senate's debate, he said, "Those who are loudly opposing the practice of ordinances today are the ones who were either completely silent or complicit in the promulgation of ordinances when their political parties were in power. The PPP promulgated not less than 104 presidential ordinances when it was in power and PML-N promulgated 46 ordinances during its term. What legal, moral and rational justification do they have to oppose our ordinances?"

Faraz said the practice of promulgation of ordinances is "perfectly legal and fully permissible in the Constitution. We are not doing anything that is against the law. So, what this fuss is all about?"

The opposition, he said, creates unnecessary hurdles when the opposition moves any bill in the Senate for parliamentary legislation. "In such a situation, we have no other option but to rely on the presidential ordinances. Not to forget that we are not in majority in Senate and when the opposition opposes the bills on matters of national importance, it really gets problematic. If opposition supports us in the legislation, we will have no reason to bring in ordinances."

Leader of the Opposition in Senate Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, Faisal Javed from PTI, Rubina Khalid from Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and Kalsoom Parveen from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) among other senators took part in the debate. The Senate has been prorogued.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019