Daily Times

A privilege motion was submitted in the Punjab Assembly secretariat on Wednesday against breaching the special orders of Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi that were not implemented by the government.

As per the details, Punjab Assembly Speaker Elahi had issued production orders of leader of the opposition Hamza Shehbaz on August 12 to attend a meeting of the special committee of the House scheduled on August 13 but government officials didn’t produce him in the meeting while breaching the orders of the Speaker, who is also the custodian of the House. On Wednesday, the privilege motion was submitted in Punjab Assembly secretariat by senior PML-N MPAs including Samiullah Khan, Malik Nadeem Kamran, Ch Iqbal Gujjar, Kh Salman Rafique, former Speaker Rana Iqbal, Awais Laghari, Malik Ahmed Khan, Bilal Farooq Tarar and Azma Bukhari. “The privilege of whole House was breached by not implementing the orders of Speaker despite the fact that all the departments were timely intimated regarding the Production Orders,” said the privilege motion.

Talking to Daily Times, MPA Samiullah Khan, the main signatory of the motion, said that the Home Department is responsible for not producing Hamza Shehbaz in Punjab Assembly despite the fact that he holds the coveted office of the Opposition Leader of the largest House of the country. Hamza Shehbaz is not in the custody of NAB these days as he is in jail and therefore the Home Department is responsible for the negligence. As per my information, the Prison Department was ready to produce the opposition leader in Punjab Assembly but it didn’t receive any fax by the Home department that day, he said. The whole Punjab Assembly staff kept waiting to receive Hamza Shehbaz from the government officials but they didn’t produce him, he added. He further added that the production orders always have legal and constitutional cover and therefore the government showed a huge negligence by not implementing it that day. I think, Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and IG Prisons will be summoned by the Punjab Assembly over the issue that demands greater attention, he said. “Now, the role of Speaker is very important here as basically his orders were breached here and he can even constitute a special committee also over the privilege motion,” said MPA Samiullah Khan, who is also a member of Punjab Assembly’s Committee on Privileges.

Sources privy to the development told this scribe that there is a possibility that the government didn’t produce Hamza in Punjab Assembly in revenge against the incident of Maryam Nawaz appearance outside NAB office that also took place on August 12-just one day before the meeting scheduled in the House. Opposition Leader Hamza Shehbaz is facing NAB cases for last 15 months and he also attends the Punjab Assembly session over the production orders issued by the Speaker but this time he wasn’t produced by the government officials for attending the meeting of a House Committee.