Govt to get power to form three-member panel. PHOTO: INP
Originally, the bill was placed before parliament on November 24. But a combination of factors including lack of quorum and opposition walkouts had prevented the government from getting it passed in the lower house until Wednesday.
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Repeated failure forced the government to extend by a day the parliamentary session, which was due to end on Tuesday.
Both Law Minister Zahid Hamid and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab – who were apparently tasked to ensure there were enough lawmakers in the house – moved from aisle to aisle to convince MPs from both treasury and opposition benches to support the proposed legislation.
Hamid and Aftab kept up their dialogue with the Pakistan Peoples Party’s chief whip Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani. Hamid also met lawmakers from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Jamaat-e-Islami to win wider support for the bill.
In a bid to torpedo the latest PML-N effort, the opposition quietly slipped out of the house but the PPP’s Shazia Marri was there along with Nafisa Shah to point out the lack of quorum. Other opposition party members, excluding Mahmood Khan Achakzai and two lawmakers from Fata, went to the gallery and watched their fellow lawmakers adopt the legislation from above.
The headcount was made and the house was announced to be in order, to which Marri objected but Speaker Ayaz Sadiq ignored her and let Hamid present the bill which was passed with a majority.
Jhakrani objected to the move and announced a boycott of the proceedings, saying that the government was not giving any importance to the National Assembly.
Anatomy of the bill
The federal cabinet had approved the draft of the said bill on Aug 31, and later the opposition also submitted its own bill in the Senate Secretariat for the formation of a judicial commission to probe into the Panama Papers revelations.
PTI expects ‘happy ending’ of Panamagate case soon
Under the proposed law, the federal government will have the power to constitute a three-member commission of inquiry. The inquiry commission will have special powers – all the powers of a criminal court under Criminal Procedure Code.
The commission will also have the power to constitute a team of administration officials or experts of a certain field, which will help the commission in inquiry. It will have powers equal to a high court to initiate contempt proceedings against anyone defying its orders, or maligning and scandalising it.
“Any proceeding before the commission shall deem to be a judicial proceeding within the meaning of sections 193 and 228 of PPC,” it says.
Besides, the final report or an interim report shall be made public provided the commission may recommend to the federal government that all or any part of the final report or any interim report may not be made public
The government also passed the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2016 and Public-Private Partnership Authority Bill 2016. Earlier, the NA passed a unanimous resolution expressing grief and sorrow over the demise of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 1st, 2016.
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