Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Thursday said the cabinet was "disappointed" by Senate chairman's ruling which barred him from attending the ongoing Senate session, adding that the government will form a strategy to tackle the matter.

During a press conference in Islamabad, Chaudhry said "no one [in the cabinet] was satisfied" by Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani's order, adding that the prime minister has asked Defence Minister Pervez Khattak to look into the matter.

"The prime minister has clearly said that no one has the right to humiliate federal ministers like this," Chaudhry said, adding that he, as well as the cabinet, was "disappointed" by Sanjrani's order.

On Wednesday, Chairman Sanjrani had told Chaudhry to leave the upper house of parliament after he failed to tender an apology for referring to opposition members as “robbers and thieves” in an earlier speech he delivered in the National Assembly. In that speech, Chaudhry had also accused Senator Mushahidullah Khan of indulging in nepotism.

Matters came to a head in Senate on Wednesday, after a scathing verbal duel in the House between Chaudhry and Senator Khan, with the latter insisting that the minister apologises over his comments. When Chaudhry refused to do so, he was asked by the chairman to leave the House.

When Thursday's session commenced, senators from opposition parties reiterated Khan's demand for an apology and threatened a walkout if it was not complied with. At this, the chairman issued a ruling that "all members are bound to respect the chairman and leaders of the house and opposition" and ordered Chaudhry to come to the Senate and tender his apology, making it clear that failure to do so on the minister's part will get him banned from attending the session.

The federal minister's failure to oblige to the ruling led the chairman to impose the ban on him.

During his press conference, Chaudhry defended his remarks, saying he had the right to question "where the previous governments had spent billions of rupees"?

"I don't understand this: Mushahidullah Khan does not have to apologise for his speech where he used extremely filthy language about the prime minister and myself, but we must apologise for talking about the poor," the minister said.

Responding to a question, Chaudhry said he had been elected into office directly by "hundreds and thousands of people" while Sanjrani had become Senate chairman through indirect elections of the upper house.

"If he (Sanjrani) cannot bring an equilibrium and balance [in the house], then the government will have to form a strategy in this regard," Chaudhry said.

'Son of Pakistan'

The information minister hailed the slain Superintendent of Police Tahir Khan Dawar — who was abducted from Islamabad on October 26 and was found dead in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province on Tuesday — as the "son of Pakistan".

When asked why the government had not issued any statement about SP Dawar's abduction for the past 19 days, the information minister said that the authorities could not publicise the steps that were being taken to recover the officer.

"We do not want the kidnappers to know [the steps being taken to find the SP]," he explained. He said that Dawar's discovery in Nangarhar and Afghanistan's reaction over the incident had raised a lot of questions.

Bureaucratic reforms

The information minister also touched upon some decisions taken by the federal cabinet in today's meeting, including reforms in bureaucracy. One of the recommendations, that were put forward during the cabinet meeting, was that the federal secretaries will be appointed to ministries on a six-month provisional period, Chaudhry said.

Once they complete the provisional period, the secretaries will serve for the next 2.5 years without any threat to their posts. The recommendation was made to ensure the job security of bureaucrats. A cabinet committee, that would be headed by Arbab Shahzad, will work on the proposal and bring forth further recommendations.

He also expressed the government's resolve to protect overseas Pakistani prisoners by providing them with legal aid. Chaudhry further said that the government was "committed" to bringing Aafia Siddiqui back to Pakistan.