Daily Times

LAHORE: Opposition members in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday boycotted the proceedings of the House over hike in petroleum prices fortnightly and a resolution passed by the government against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the wake of the arrest of former Lahore Development Authority (LDA) director general Ahad Cheema in Ashiana Housing scheme scam.

Opposition Leader Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed also filed a resolution to press the government to withdraw its resolution passed by it last week from the House in the absence of the opposition members.

Punjab Assembly session on Tuesday started one hour and 10 minutes late to its scheduled time
at 10am under the chair of Speaker Rana Iqbal.

The House adopted question hour about the Law and Parliamentary Affairs. Parliamentary Secretary Nazar Gondal answered queries.

During the question hour, Dr Waseem Akhtar said that the government should improve the existing judicial system. He said that justice was not being dispensed and cases had been pending for long times. He was also of the view that the Punjab Assembly had the authority to fix time limit for resolution of cases pending in the court by amending the laws related to the judicial system. He requested the speaker to refer the matter to the standing committee of the Punjab Assembly.

In his response, the parliamentary secretary said that the government was committed to providing justice to the people

Mian Aslam Iqbal of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) raised the issue of MCat and ECat entry tests and heavy fees being charged by private academies. He demanded the speaker to adopt the final report of the Special Committee constituted by the House. Committee Chairman Raja Qamar ul Islam also demanded the Speaker to take up the matter in larger interest of students and parents, who were being looted by academies. After a long discussion, the speaker decided to adopt the report today (Wednesday).

Dr Noshin Hamid of the PTI raised the issue of alleged torture on blind people who had been protesting for getting quota in public jobs in front of the Punjab Chief Minister’s House earlier this week. The opposition leader threw his weight behind the stance of Dr Noshin and urged the government to fulfil its its commitments it had made to visually impaired people.

He said that government was obliging its MPAs by giving them jobs quota in the province. On this, Punjab Minister for Human Rights Khalil Tahir Sindhu clarified that the PML-N government had not given any quota to its MPAs. He said that they were implementing on the fixed quota of three percent for the special people in government jobs.

Mehmoodur Rasheed asked the speaker to take up his pending resolution against the increase of petroleum prices out of turn. However, his request was turned down. Dejected, the opposition staged a protest and announced to boycott the session. Meanwhile a legislator pointed out the quorum and the speaker adjourned the session till today (Wednesday).

Later, he also filed a resolution in the assembly secretariat in which he paid tribute to the NAB for its actions against corruption. He said in the resolution that the Punjab government had used the forum against a state institute just to hide the corruption of Sharif family. He said that the government should immediately withdraw its resolution.

Published in Daily Times, March 7^th 2018.