July 28, 2006	Friday	Rajab 1, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 27: National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs on Thursday took serious notice of the alleged misuse of human rights funds by Federal Minister for Law Wasi Zafar and former minister of state Raza Hayat Harraj and summoned all the five members of the ministry’s Funds Distribution Committee, including former senior joint secretary Saira Karim in the next meeting, a source told Dawn.

The committee, which met under the chairmanship of Rai Mansab Ali Khan, expressed its displeasure over the alleged distribution of human rights funds of the ministry among 365 people of the law minister’s constituency of Jaranwala and among 64 people belonging to the Khanewal constituency of Raza Hayat Harraj.

The source said the committee chairman declared that the distribution of funds was not proper and the committee would not approve it. He also directed the law ministry officials to review the rules for the distribution of human rights funds and ensure its just distribution in future.

According to the source, the secretary of the law ministry, Justice (Retd) Mansoor Ahmed, tried to defend the ministers saying that perhaps the ministers had committed a mistake in the distribution of funds while making decisions in good faith. The secretary also requested the committee to stop further investigations into the matter.

However, the source said, the standing committee members rejected the request and the chairman announced that the committee would hold a thorough probe into the matter.

The chairman called former joint secretary of the law ministry Saira Karim, who was transferred to the ministry of education for disobeying the minister’s directive to approve distribution of funds, in the next meeting to inform the committee about the whole issue.

The source said the issue was raised by Pakistan Muslim League (PML) MNA Kashmala Tariq in the committee meeting. She alleged that it seemed that the minister had used these funds for his personal benefits as even the addresses of the recipients of funds had not been provided to the committee. The source said that Ms Tariq praised Saira Karim for not obeying illegal orders of the law minister and questioned as to why the other four members of the Funds Distribution Committee remained silent on it.

At this point, the source said, a member of the commission Rana Zahoor said that it had been a practice that the ministry did not issue any advertisement before distribution of the human rights funds and normally the funds were distributed among the people of the law minister’s constituency. He said the funds committee did not even receive applications from other areas of the country. However, Kashmala Tariq snubbed Mr Zahoor saying why had the ministry not invited applications through its provincial directorates and why had they approved the applications even without mentioning the addresses?

Meanwhile, according to an official handout, the standing committee also approved the design of the new insignia of the National Assembly. The committee directed the ministry of food and agriculture to consult provinces on the Adulteration Offences (Special Courts) Bill 2003 and to present its report in the next meeting. The committee also directed the law ministry to present a comparison report about the existing laws and bill moved by PPP MNA Sherry Rehman to curb honour killings.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Fauzia Habib, Sherry Rehman, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Syed Naveed Qamar, Chaudhry Haroon Qaiser and Kashmala Tariq.