LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly is setting new precedents these days. On Thursday, it violated all traditions when Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi ignored calls for quorum, delivered ‘highly partisan’ political speech from his rostrum and once adjourned the House to only restart session in next five minutes.

It all started when Waris Kahloon of the PML-N stood on a point of order and again requested the Chair for production order for Khwaja Salman Rafique, who was nabbed by the National Accountability Bureau two days earlier. Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat responded by saying that there were no rules to issue such an order.

“Even if the House, as desired by my colleague, Waris Kahloon, passes a resolution for release of the members and the courts ignore it, where would this House and its prestige stand? The Treasury is not opposing release of any particular person, but only pointing out absence of relevant law that empowers the Chair to issue such an order,” the law minister said.

Waris Kahloon, however, insisted that the Chair can issue such orders. “If such production orders were not passed (for Maulana Azam Tariq, Moonis Elahi etc.) in the past as the Treasury says, we condemn the act and asked the Chair to issue them now, and he certainly can.”

Chair violates traditions; minister says no law exists to issue production order for detained member

Kahloon’s views were supported by former speaker Rana Iqbal, who maintained that the Chair can direct the NAB and it must. “All previous precedents have different context. The law minister is only challenging the powers of the custodian of the House when he cites absence of rules. The Chair has the powers to even set new precedents,” Iqbal insisted.

As Waris Kahloon again stood up to further elaborate his point, he was snubbed by the Chair: “Please sit down now, you have marked you presence in the house (of Sharifs) that matters to you. In earlier cases, you could not put up courage to oppose Rana Sanaullah who opposed such orders (for Moonis Elahi, his son). Rana Sanaullah is the man responsible for Model Town massacre. You people should have then told your government to appoint better advisers and ministers instead of like Rana Sanaullah.”

The highly political sermon by the speaker, supposed to be neutral custodian of the House, raised a few eyebrows in the press gallery as well but he kept surprising everyone when only five minutes down the line he was at it again. Advising the Treasury to forget the past and try to build consensus for such an amendment and bring legislation to the House, he said: “I don’t trust the opposition. It can go back on its words once this lot returns to power. They can do it again, but the PTI government should stay positive.”

He was continuing when the Opposition, failing to get the production order, decided to walk out of the House. “Okay, go out. No issue” was the Chair’s response and he continued telling the Treasury to prepare the draft.

He was still sermonising when Raheela Naeem of the Opposition returned to point out quorum at around 1.23pm. She kept yelling about the quorum but the Chair kept talking to the Treasury and the law minister assuring him that it would be done soon. After finishing the talk, the Chair told the House that since quorum has been pointed out, “we should disperse for prayers.” The Chair was told by some cabinet members that the agenda has also been completed upon which the speaker announced adjournment of the House for Friday morning.

The assembly staff told the Chair that since quorum has been pointed out, customary ringing of bells for five minutes was mandatory. “Ok, ring the bells,” they were told. Surprisingly, as members start assembling with bells and the House had the numbers, the Chair restarted the proceedings and told members to come with “call attention notice.” They stayed in session for another 10 minutes before it was adjourned again [for Friday morning].

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2018