Senate okays formation of 12-member ToRs committee amid Rabbani's walkout

Rabbani stages walkout after minister for law moved a motion for which he wasn't consulted prior to the session

ISLAMABAD: Senators in the upper house of parliament unanimously approved on Friday passage of a motion calling for the formation of a 12-member parliamentary committee to draft the terms of reference (ToRs) to probe the Panama Papers scandal as Senate chairman Raza Rabbani staged a walkout from the House in protest.

Rabbani walked out from the House after Minister for Law Zahid Hamid moved a motion for which the Senate chairman had not been consulted prior to the session.



Before leaving the House, Rabbani said in light of the Al Jihad Trust case, prior to taking up a motion regarding corruption before the Senate, the National Assembly (NA) should have consulted the Senate chairman.

Further, Rabbani also expressed displeasure over eight bills that the Senate had passed and sent to the lower house of parliament, which NA failed to place on their orders of the day.

Rabbani claimed to have informed NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq of this on Thursday, who, according to the chairman was also unaware of the Senate's decision to move a motion without consulting any of them.



“The sad part was that the National Assembly secretariat did not even deem it fit to inform the speaker that eight bills had been passed by the Senate in his secretariat. These are the disadvantages the Senate is working with but we will not give up the fight, we will continue the fight whether it is within parliament or outside,” Rabbani said.

He left Senator Javed Abbasi to drive the house proceedings in the absence of Senate Deputy Chairman Maulana Ghafoor Haideri. Subsequently, the resolution was unanimously endorsed by the senators.

According to the motion, the parliamentary committee is required to consider options for inquiry issues raised by the Panama Papers. These include offshore companies, transfer of funds from Pakistan by originating from corruption, commission or kickbacks and written-off bank loans.



Further, the parliamentary committee is to decide upon the formulation of ToRs and its submission, which must also submit a report to the Parliament within two weeks, the motion stated.

On Thursday, Zahid Hamid had moved a motion in the National Assembly regarding the formulation of eight-member committee instead of the previously-agreed upon 12 members.

However, the motion had to be reverted back to 12 members, eliciting a strong reaction from the lawmakers in the opposition in the house.