ISLAMABAD - Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani yesterday disallowed an adjournment motion of PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar seeking discussion over statements of a former federal minister that the head of the premier intelligence agency had planned to oust the government last year.
The Chairman Senate also told the house that he was working on the issue of not accepting resignations of MQM Senators. He said that he would announce the ruling by Friday explaining why he did not accept the resignations of MQM lawmakers. Eight MQM Senators had resigned from the house as a protest against the on-going Karachi operation led by Rangers.
Chairman Senate, the other day, had been questioned by Senator Farhatullah Babar over the admissibility of his adjournment motion that whether a political statement given by a member outside the house could be admitted as an adjournment motion for discussion.
In an interview to a foreign news agency on August 14 this year, Senator Mushahidullah Khan, former climate change minister, had accused that then DG ISI Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam had made a plan to overthrow the PML-N government and that he was backing the sit-in of PTI.
Continuing his arguments from yesterday on his motion, Senator Babar said that the Senate Rules of Business did not bar a minister’s statement from being made the basis of adjournment motion.
“The parameters of admissibility in the rules were factors like being an issue of great public importance, relating to one definite issue and being a matter of recent occurrence,” he said.
“If the rules were silent on the subject one could rely on well known authorities on the practice and procedure of parliament like MN Kaul and Shakdher which he said had often been also referred to by the chairman while sitting on the opposition benches,” he added.
Rabbani said that since the government had disputed the press talk of Mushahidllah Khan it was a reason to disallow the motion.
PPP Senator Sherry Rehman demanded of the government to brief the house on the issue of cross-border firing by Indian troops as well as on matters related to foreign policy. “The Narendra Moodi Sarkar is under pressure from the RSS, and this is the reason the Indian prime minister is trying to build pressure on Pakistan through such tactics which is not acceptable,” she said. She asked for a briefing on recent meeting between Rangers Pakistan and Border Security Force India.
Chairman Senate also directed interior ministry to expedite pending matter of issuance of Pakistani visa to Carey Schofield, a British educationist, and report back to the house on first week of October.
The chairman Senate had sought report from the interior ministry after Senator Samina Abid of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) raised the issue on July 7.
The State Minister for Interior Baligur Rehman told the house that the issue was still under consideration by the Ministry of Interior. Earlier, the ministry had denied visa to British educationist.
Carey Sheffield is a British educationist who has been working as a principal at Langlands School and College in Chitral since 2013.