20th Amendment Bill deferred

ISLAMABAD: The Constitution (20th Amendment), Bill, 2012 which was to be taken up by the National Assembly to validate bye elections, was deferred on request of PPP chief whip and federal Minister Syed Khurshid Shah on Wednesday.

Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Begum Nasim Akhter Chaudhry, however, laid report of the committee on the Constitution (20th Amendment) Bill, 2012 in the house.

An amendment in Article 219 of the Constitution says that ‘provided that till such time the members of the commission are appointed in accordance with Article 218 (2) (b), the Commissioner shall remained charged with duties enumerated in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of this Article’.

The bill would come into effect from April 19, 2010. The statement of objects and reasons of the bill says that in judgement of the Supreme Court of Pakistan given on April 4, 2011 in a constitution petition, direction was given to the federation for constitution of an election commission in accordance with amended provisions of the constitution and certain observations were also in the course of hearing of another constitution petition particularly with reference to bye elections which had been conducted by the chief election commissioner in interregnum. “In order to give legal cover it has become necessary to amend the constitution for this purpose,” the statement said.

The bill was okayed by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs on Tuesday in absence of PML-N members who boycotted proceedings of the committee.

Meanwhile, Khurshid Shah told the house that consultations were in progress with the Punjab province to create a federal drug regulatory authority, saying that three other provinces had already given their consent in this regard.

He maintained following passage of the 18th amendment, the federal government could not interfere in provincial matters. Nadeem Afzal Chan of PPP raised issue of deaths of over 100 patients who used medicines taken from the Punjab Institute of Cardiology saying that a judicial commission had been established to probe into the matter but the province earlier had not implemented reports of commission on flaws in results of examination boards and conspiracy to murder then chief justice of the High Court Khawaja Muhammad Sharif.