MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly Speaker Anwarul Haq, who a couple of days ago had said that the government should demonstrate greater sense of responsibility in running the house, himself remained absent on Friday along with the deputy speaker when the session was prorogued sine die due to lack of quorum in what showed alleged non-seriousness on both sides of the political divide in running the house.

The session, summoned by the government, was held on Tuesday to get approved a law seeking abrogation of a controversial legislation by the previous PML-N government, whereby an unspecified number of ad hoc, contractual and temporary employees were regularised “on humanitarian basis”.

It was then adjourned by Speaker Haq for two days at the request of Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi in view of some “important engagements” in Islamabad on Wednesday and Thursday, including a joint rally to highlight the Kashmir issue.

However, while granting the request on Tuesday, Mr Haq had maintained that the government needed to demonstrate greater sense of responsibility in running the house from where it derived power, particularly because while the AJK Constitution called for 60 sittings in a year the house had so far met for only 17 days.

Speaker who was unhappy at govt attitude himself remains absent from Friday’s sitting

On Friday, when the house met again, not only the speaker and deputy speaker were absent themselves, the prime minister and most of his cabinet members were also away.

The session was then presided over by the ruling PTI’s Chaudhry Rafique Nayyar, as member of the panel of chairmen. Apart from Mr Nayyar, there were only eight treasury and four opposition members — all from the PPP — in attendance.

Interestingly, instead of taking advantage of the situation, the opposition itself bailed out the government by pointing out the lack of quorum.

Soon after the house held fateha for Senator Rehman Malik and others who lost their lives to Covid-19 in AJK and Pakistan and Indian repression in occupied Kashmir, PPP’s Nabila Ayub drew attention of the chair to the lack of quorum.

As the counting showed attendance of only 13 members, Mr Nayyar prorogued the house sine die without following the parliamentary norm of ringing bells for a certain duration.

Later, Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Latif Akbar told reporters that the opposition would submit a requisition to summon the session. He accused the government of shirking from answerability but could not explain as to why the opposition had let the ruling party avoid answerability in Friday’s session.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2022