LAHORE, Nov 3: Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Afzal Sahi prorogued the session for an indefinite period when the treasury failed to complete its quorum, here on Monday.

The proceedings of the house began 35 minutes later than its scheduled time of 10:00am. After recitation from the Holy Quran, Haji Ijaz of the opposition benches drew the attention of the speaker towards lack of quorum.

There were only 18 members in the house at that time, as the opposition stayed away from it.

The chair directed ringing of bells for five minutes and later for 30 more minutes, as members of both treasury and opposition members ignored these.

When the proceedings again started at 11:10am, only 80 members from the treasury and one (Haji Ijaz) from the opposition were present in the house. Then the chair prorogued the house for an indefinite period.

Before this revenue minister Gul Hameed Rokhari and Haji Ijaz exchanged harsh words on the floor of the house. The minister berated the opposition for “damaging national institutions” by not discharging their responsibilities and creating hurdles in the way of those, who wanted to perform their duties.

Haji Ijaz said it was the PML-Q, which had been damaging institutions by appointing the convicts to the posts of ministers.

Confusion: Speaker Afzal Sahi himself seemed a little confused on Monday over the question that who could prorogue the assembly session —- the speaker or the governor.

Asked if the house had been prorogued on governor’s orders, he replied in the negative as he had not yet read such a notification. But, he hastened to add the step had been taken on the governor’s orders although he (the speaker) was also empowered to do so.

Rejecting the opposition charge that the house was prorogued because Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi had left for Germany to attend to ailing PML-Q chief Shujaat Husain, he said on many occasions, the CM was abroad but the assembly continued its business.

Admitting the opposition’s right to point out quorum, Mr Sahi, however, claimed that there was an understanding between the opposition and the treasury that the former would not take this step during questions hour and call attention notices.

Defending the treasury, he said the house lacked quorum because members had to come from far-off places after enjoying weekend and not because they lacked interest in the proceedings.

Praising the chief minister, he said it was because of his efforts that for the first time any provincial assembly had done so much legislative work in a year.

Replying to a question, he said the opposition had been more cooperative in running the house than was the opposition in the other provincial assemblies.

LAW MINISTER: Raja Basharat also denied that the house had been prorogued due to lack of interest shown by the members in its proceedings.