ISLAMABAD: In an unprecedented manner, Senate Deputy Chairman Sabir Baloch barred a federal minister on Tuesday from taking part in the proceedings of the house for one day for his conduct in the National Assembly, without giving him an opportunity to defend himself.

Interestingly, after announcing his verdict against Minister for Information Technology Zahid Hamid, Mr Baloch reserved his ruling for further action, saying he would issue it after seeing the record of the assembly’s proceedings.

“You may sit in the house if you want but you can’t participate in the proceedings today,” Mr Baloch ruled.

The Leader of the House, Raja Zafarul Haq, raised objection to the ruling but said the minister would obey it. “Even an accused in a murder case has the right to defend himself,” he said.

Mr Hamid, who is also the de facto law minister of the PML-N government, remain­ed in the house for some time and then left the hall.

At the outset of the session, the parliamentary leader of the opposition PPP, Raza Rabbani, alleged on a point of order that the minister had “insulted” the Senate while opposing a bill, already passed by the upper house, in the National Assembly earlier in the day.

“A minister who is present in the house has insulted the Senate,” Mr Rabbani said at a time when Mr Hamid was only sitting on the front treasury benches during the question hour.

He claimed that while opposing the bill, the minister had twice said that the Senate was setting wrong traditions.

“Who is he to say this? He has committed contempt of the Senate and breached its privilege,” Mr Rabbani said, asking the chair to ban the minister from participating in the proceedings until he tendered an apology.

He also criticised Mr Hamid for having been a member of the Musharraf cabinet at a time when the military dictator imposed emergency in the country on Nov 3, 2007.

The PPP senator said the bill seeking to bar government officials from working for international NGOs, financial institutions or donor agencies after taking leave had been unanimously passed by the Senate. The Civil Servant (Amendment) Bill, authored by PPP Senator Sughra Imam, was referred to a standing committee by the NA deputy speaker after a heated exchange of arguments between Mr Hamid and PPP MNAs in the presence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

“If the government wants to provide this facility to government officials, it has the right to oppose the bill”, Mr Rabbani said, adding that they would not allow anyone to insult the Senate.

In an apparent reference to the recent political crisis caused by the Islamabad sit-ins, the PPP leader said they believed that the government and its ministers would have learnt a lesson. “But it has not happened.”

Zahid Khan of the Awami National Party (ANP) said: “The ship of the government is sinking because of ministers.” He said Mr Hamid had lost the right to sit in the house and they would not allow him to do so.

Similarly, he said, they would not allow those ministers to sit in the house who did not attend meetings of standing committees.

Mr Khan named Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif in this regard. He said as the chairman of the committee on water and power, he had even written letters to the prime minister to ensure his attendance in its meetings, but to no avail.

Referring to the majority of opposition members in the Senate, he even threatened to block the government’s legislation till 2018 “if the rulers do not mend their ways”.

The minister tried to respond twice but the opposition refused to listen to him and raised “no, no” slogans, forcing the deputy speaker to announce the ruling.

Later during the question hour, the opposition again took the government to task when Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, in reply to a question by PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on the Metro bus project, passed some uncalled for political remarks.

The agitating opposition members demanded an apology from the minister and expressed dissatisfaction over the replies given by Mr Iqbal.

To save the situation from worsening, Raja Zafarul Haq apologised on behalf of the minister. The PPP and ANP members were not ready to accept the apology and intended to stage a walkout when Chaudhry Shujaat asked the chair to defer the question till Wednesday.

Opposition Leader Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan said the government had been looking for support from every one and even had called a joint session of parliament “when its ship was rocking.”

The prime minister, he said, had assured them that ministers would take parliament seriously but it seemed that they had learnt nothing.

“We will not be there every time to bail you out,” he said.

The session ended with the opposition’s walkout against the deputy chairman for not allowing Haji Adeel of the ANP to ask a supplementary question. After the walkout, the ANP’s Abdul Nabi Bangash came to the house to point out lack of quorum.

The deputy chairman adjourned the sitting till Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2014