Daily Times

Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi said on Monday that maintaining the respect and prestige of the members and running the House in accordance with the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure is my responsibility which will be fulfilled after all.

He said this while speaking on the Privilege Motion moved by Sajid Ahmed Khan and other members against hurting the prestige of the House by the Opposition.

During discussion on the Privilege Motion, a number of members said that use of low language due to lack of training against the speaker elected by the members vote is very shameful whereas the role of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is quite appreciable.

Pervaiz Elahi said that on October 16, lowering of the prestige of sacred House by the Opposition members is very shameful as 12 members had shattered the peace of the House out of which six were identified and legal action against their entry into the House until the end of current session was banned and doing so I had fulfilled my duty, for further probe into October 16 incident, a committee is being constituted which will probe the matter honestly and submit its report in the House.

All members are under the Constitution and Rules of the Procedure of the Assembly. As a custodian, all members are equal in my eyes and I cannot allow any member throw dirt on the person of any Member.

Presenting the Privilege Motion, it was stated by the members that running the proceedings of the House in an organised manner under Rules of Procedure article 223, 224 and other rules is the responsibility of the speaker and if any member despite being advised by the speaker repeatedly violates the rules then the Speaker under article 210 can pass an order against him.

It is compulsory to implement such orders. Under Article 69 of the Constitution of Pakistan, a legal cover has been provided to the proceedings of the Assembly that it cannot be challenged at any forum and even in the court, protests do occur in the Parliament but on October 16, the atmosphere created was unprecedented.

On that, the speaker while exercising his powers, suspended six members from the session. In all the parliaments of the world, the speaker has a status and respect. He is the custodian of the House but Hamza Shehbaz Sharif challenged this step of the Speaker in a very mean manner and threw dirt on him and leveled baseless and filthy allegations against him out of personal enmity.

Not only in Pakistan but also in the parliaments of the world, orders and rulings of the speaker are not challenged. The Punjab Assembly speaker has been elected with a majority of votes of the peoples representatives.

Published in Daily Times, October 23^rd 2018.