LAHORE, June 7: The Punjab Assembly on Thursday adopted five bills and referred 12 others to various standing committees.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah presented the Parks and Horticulture Authority Bill 2011, The Punjab Animals Slaughter Control (Amendment) Bill 2012, the Evacuee Property and Displaced Persons Law (Repeal) (Amendment) Bill 2011, the Settlement Commissioners (Validation of Orders) (Repeal) Bill 2011 and the Punjab Public Defender Service Act 2007 (Repeal) Bill 2011.

The assembly passed the first three bills unanimously. However, to the remaining two bills PPP’s Ehsanul Haq Nolathia raised objections which were voted out.

Mr Nolathia said all subjects of the evacuee property had not been given to Punjab under the 18th Amendment. He said Governor Latif Khosa had raised the same objection while rejecting the bill and the matter should be referred to the implementation commission for a final decision.

Rana Sanaullah said under the 18th Amendment, the department of evacuee trust had been handed over to Punjab. He said the PPP was interested in retaining the department because it wanted to do more corruption in it.

“Enough corruption has been done in the department during the last four years,” he added.

Nolathia tore the copy of the agenda and walked out of the house when Deputy Speaker Rana Mashhood, who was in the chair, did not give him more time to discuss the matter.

Minister Malik Nadeem, however, brought him back to the house. Nolathia then targeted Rana Sana, calling him ‘accused law minister’ and asked the chair to take up his privileged motion against him (Sana) which had been pending for the last one year.

The bills referred to the standing committees are: the Women University Multan (Amendment) 2012, the Public Sector Universities (Amendment) 2012, the Punjab Agriculture Universities (Amendment) 2012, the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Lahore (Amendment) 2012, the University of Health Sciences Lahore (Amendment) 2012, the Punjab Technology University 2012, the Punjab Revenue Authority 2012, the Punjab Evacuee Trust Properties (Management Disposal) (Amendment) 2012, the Punjab Housing and Town-Planning Agency (Amendment) 2012, the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab Privileges (Amendment) 2012 and the Punjab Local Government 2012.

In a call attention notice, PML-Q parliamentary leader Chaudhry Zaheeruddin asked the Punjab government what measures it had taken to control rising crime, especially robberies at jewellery shops.

Responding to the query, Sanaullah said it had asked jewellers to install CCTV cameras.

The chair adjourned the proceedings till Friday (today).