Senate panel discusses seats increasing proposal

Upper house of parliament gets a briefing from NAB about working, overall performance of watchdog

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel on Wednesday deliberated on a proposal that calls for maintaining the current numerical strengthen of the upper house by increasing the number of general seats from each province.

The total number of seats in the Senate is going to reduce to 96 from the existing 104 as eight seats that from the former Federally Administered Areas (Fata) will cease to exist with retirement of the existing Fata senators in view of Fata’s 2018 merger with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province.

However, Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani has proposed to maintain the current numerical strengthen of Senate and to distribute eight seats from former Fata among the four provinces by equally increasing the number of general seats from each province from existing 23 to 25 – in a phased manner.

According to the Constitution, each of the four provinces are represented by 23 senators regardless of their population, while the Fata and Islamabad Capital Territory were represented by eight and two senators respectively, all of whom serve six-year terms.

Sanjrani proposes increasing provincial Senate seats

Sanjrani has proposed that four seats, one for each province, be increased in the forthcoming Senate election scheduled for March, 2021 and four more seats be increased in the Senate polls to be held in March, 2024 with a view to provide for continuity in terms of total number of seats.

The Senate chairman referred the matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Law & Justice – headed by Senator Javed Abbasi – which discussed the proposal. It was later decided to further discuss the matter in detail in a separate meeting.

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs was also given a detailed briefing by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) regarding working and overall performance of the accountability watchdog, procedure of taking cognizance of cases, inquiry and prosecution, operational methodology, timeline of cases, international commitments, and offences under National Accountability Ordinance 1999 among other matters.

The briefing will continue in the next meeting.

The panel also discussed Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues (Amendment) Bill, 2018.

The National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) chairman told the committee that the possibility of putting a mark on the national identity card cannot be ruled out but it would only be possible to be incorporated or taken out when a person comes to Nadra for getting his or her card renewed.

He told the panel that there is no need to change details in the Nadra form to put a symbol/mark on the card. The committee decided to make a decision on the bill in the next meeting after consultations.

The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2018 (Amendment of Article 27), The Ratification of Foreign Agreements by Parliament Bill, 2018 and The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (Insertion of Article 253A) were deferred due to the absence of movers.