NA panel told to strike Rana Shamim off agenda

Speaker Qaiser writes to body’s chairman to amend agenda, saying matter is sub judice.

ISLAMABD:

National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser on Tuesday wrote a letter to the chairman of the Standing Committee on Information asking him to exclude from one of its meetings the agenda pertaining to the issue of ex-CJ Gilgit Baltistan Rana Shamim’s affidavit.

Speaker Qaiser has emphasised that the agenda should be amended on the ground that it is a sub judice matter.

The speaker’s letter comes weeks after Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain also penned a similar letter to the chairman of the committee, Mian Javed Latif, and asked him to drop the agenda item.

The agenda item VI states: “to discuss the issue published in electronic and print media and also discussed in the previous meeting of the standing committee on information and broadcasting regarding ex-CJ GB claims in a signed affidavit: ‘Saqib Nisar directed not to release Nawaz, Maryam before 2018 elections”.

The NA standing committee had summoned Nisar and Shamim on December 29 but the meeting could not be held and remains delayed for several weeks due to the contention.

Earlier this month, the opposition members of the said committee had asked the NA speaker to call the meeting of the panel and expressed concern that the much-needed meeting has not been held even after a lapse of several weeks.

The agenda item VII is “to discuss the issue of audio recently released by Mr Ahmed Noorani regarding ex-chief justice of Pakistan Mr Saqib Nisar”.

Other agenda items include murder attempt on former senior journalist Absar Alam, attack on journalist Asad Toor and registration of FIRs against senior journalists Hamid Mir and Asma Shirazi.

Another agenda item is related to columnist and TV news analyst Hassan Nisar who has made a statement on PTV that those who take the name of democracy “should be shot dead and the cost of the bullet should be recovered from their families”.

 

Read: "Body formed to investigate audio leak, affidavit"