PESHAWAR, Oct 25: The treasury benches on Tuesday made a history, defeating its own bill regarding registration of Deeni Madaris under the NWFP Societies Registration Act of 1860.

The Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal government, which is against the registration of seminaries, had decided to introduce a new section into the Societies Registration Act of 1860, to provide a legal cover to hundreds of seminariaes spread across the country. The provincial cabinet had approved the draft of the amendment bill in its Oct 8 meeting, the day earthquake struck a major part of northeastern districts of the province. Law Minister Malik Zafar Azam, laid the bill in the house on Friday.

“Sensing implications of the bill, the government backed out of its stand. It was an afterthought which forced the treasury benches to bulldoze the bill in the process of its passage,” said Abdul Akbar Khan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians.

After wastage of much time, Deputy Speaker Ikramullah Shahid, who was presiding over the session helped the MMA lawmakers to bulldoze the bill by a majority vote. The opposition leaders, Abdul Akbar Khan (PPP), Bashir Ahmed Bilour of the Awami National Party and Anwar Kamal Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) made some convincing points that the bill could not be killed at this stage. The law minister, who was in great trouble, said the majority could defeat it by show of hand.

Earlier, when Pir Mohammad Khan, an MMA dissident, was trying to convince the house on an early passage of the bill and was not ready to leave his mike, the deputy speaker himself walked out of the house. Later, when the house resumed its proceedings, deputy speaker allowed more MPAs to speak on the issue, which ended with the defeat of the treasury benches.

The house also adopted to other bills — University of Science and Technology, Bannu, Bill, 2005 and NWFP Forestry Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2005 — presented by, respectively, education minister Maulana Fazle Ali and Health Minister Inyatullah Khan in the House. Chairmen of standing committees on the law reforms and local bodies government laid their reports before the House.

Speaking on a point of order, the lawmakers from both sides drew the attention of the chair towards the role of the state television channel, PTV, for its complete disregard towards the proceedings of the NWFP assembly, which had been debating on the aftermaths of the earthquake in upper parts of Hazara region.

They criticized the PTV for what the called ‘blacking out NWFP at the national hook-up.

The state channel, they said, had yet not focussed on the inaccessible villages rattled by the quake on Oct 8. The lawmakers praised the role of the journalists, who had been and still portraying the real picture of the situation after the quake upside down the villages.