ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro has disallowed a question of People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Enver Baig about the high- rises in Karachi, Dawn has learnt. The PPP senator had submitted a question to the Senate Secretariat on November 7 asking Minister for Housing and Works Syed Safwanullah to provide the “information about the number of high-rise NOCs given to the builders in Karachi since January 2005 todate.

The senator had also asked the minister to “provide copies of all NOCs and completion certificates and names of the builders with complete postal addresses, telephone numbers and names of the chief executives”.

On November 19, Mr Baig received a letter from the Senate Secretariat informing him that the Senate chairman had disallowed the question, as it “pertained to the provincial government”.

“The Senate chairman has been pleased to hold the question to be inadmissible under Rule 47(vii) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate, 1988,” says the letter sent to Mr. Baig by section officer Mohammad Anwar.

Meanwhile, Senator Enver Baig has protested over the decision of the chairman to declare his question inadmissible.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, Mr Baig said he was a senator on a seat from Sindh and, therefore, had the right to ask any question on any issue related to his province. Moreover, he said, the Senate represented the federation and that was the reason that all the four provinces had equal representation in the house.