LAHORE - Punjab Assembly on Friday passed four bills including Punjab Local Government (amendment) Bill 2014 with majority vote, rejecting all amendments presented by the Opposition legislators.
The House passed four bills - the Punjab Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2014, the Punjab Local Government (Second Amendment) Bill 2014, the Punjab Overseas Pakistanis Commission Bill 2014 and the Punjab Registration of Godowns Bill 2014, after debate for an hour and 22 minutes.
The passage of the Punjab Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2014 and the Punjab Local Government (Second Amendment) Bill 2014 have given responsibility of preparing voters lists and delimitation for Local Bodies elections to the Election Commission of Pakistan. Opposition legislator pointed out quorum which was found complete after head count.
The proceedings started 55 minutes behind the schedule with Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal in the chair. In the absence of Chief Minister Punjab and Leader of the Opposition, the House took up all agenda items except a discussion on a resolution regarding prevailing political situation in the wake of sit in in Islamabad and democracy. Giving arguments in favour of his proposed amendments in the Punjab Overseas Pakistanis Commission Bill 2014 and the Punjab Registration of Godowns Bill 2014, Dr Waseem Akhtar said that the Treasury should fulfil the requirements of getting public opinion by circulating the bill.
He was of the opinion that the Treasury always managed to pass bills through majority but its affects started surfacing after implementation. As such, he said, there was need of taking public sense on proposed legislations before voting in the House. He said that instead of focusing on real issues, the government was bent upon doing legislation in haste and that too against public interests. He said that the Treasury was also violating the Constitution by getting such bills approved from the House.
PPP’s Makhdoom Shahab-ud-Din and Faiza Malik and PML-Q’s Waqas Hassan Moakal also gave arguments in favour of their proposed cut motions. Law Minister Mian Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman said that all four bills were Ordinances which remained on website after promulgation. He said that all the stakeholders were aware about contents and no one gave any proposal. As such, he said, there was no need of wasting any time on circulation of bills for getting public feedback. He said that the demand of circulation of bills and proposed amendments were baseless and as such they should be rejected.
After rejecting all amendments proposed by the Opposition legislators, the House passed all four bills with majority vote. The Law Minister also introduced the Punjab Arms (Amendment) Bill 2014 in the House which was referred to the relevant Standing Committee for submitting report after deliberation.
After completion of agenda, the chair adjourned the proceeding till Monday evening.