Reply sought on holding assembly session in hotel

Petitioner says taxpayers’ money used to facilitate MPAs

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan has sought a reply on an application requesting to make respondents the principal secretary to Punjab governor and other officials in a petition challenging the notification under which a Punjab Assembly session was summoned in a local hotel.

In previous proceedings, the LHC CJ had made clear to the petitioner Anjum Hameed that “I will dispose of this petition by imposing fine of Rs500,000 if you could not establish the legal point relating to the delegation of governor’s powers.”

The petitioner contended that on one hand, Prime Minister Imran Khan had been making tall claims of simplicity while on the other the House was summoned in a hotel. She submitted that the Punjab Assembly’s building had been constructed for summoning the House proceedings.

The PA’s session started on June 5 in a local hotel. Neither the public tax amount could be spent on local hotels to summon PA session, nor on the provision of facilities to the PA’s members.

She requested the court to summon all details of expenses on the session convened in the hotel. She requested the court to issue orders to the authorities concerned to deposit in the national exchequer the amount spent on holding the PA session in the hotel.

Following an impression that Rs1.2 million was being spent each day on the session, Secretary Punjab Assembly Muhammad Khan Bhatti made clear that the hotel was charging Rs225,000 per day, which was the lowest rate in the market. No charges will be paid for off days during the session. The opposition was on board over summoning the house in the hotel.

Some sessions had already been summoned in Punjab Assembly wherein only selected MPAs from both treasury and opposition benches had participated as the agenda items of those sessions did not require any voting on government businesses, the official said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2020.