September 16, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 15: The city council adjourned its session, which was called by the City Naib Nazim, Nasreen Jalil, till Sept 18 when it emerged during Monday’s sitting that the session was inquorate.

The naib nazim had called the session to discuss a single-point agenda regarding the restructuring of the departments of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town, creation of new posts and changing the nomenclature of posts and approval of grade promotions.

On Monday afternoon when the house was called to order, a large number of council members did not turn up due to which the convener had to suspend the business for half an hour.

However, when the house reassembled, there were only 96 members in a house of 255 while the required quorum is 142 members.

Thereafter, the convener adjourned the house to meet again on Sept 18 at 12 noon. The absence of a large number of treasury members raised many eyebrows.

Some opposition members attributed it to the differences among the treasury members on the resolution of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town as the opposition members claimed that the matter did not come under the purview of the city council.

The leader of the of Al-Khidmat panel, Rafiq Ahmed, and Imran Baghpatti argued that it was the responsibility of the treasury to achieve the quorum but they accused the treasury of a “foul -play” by preventing their members to stay away from the council’s proceedings.

They said that the Sept 15 session was very important for them as they wanted to move a joint resolution condemning the US forces’ action in the tribal areas of the country.