Islamabad
The National Assembly on Thursday passed two private members’ bills and referred another three legislative proposals to the relevant Standing Committees after their introduction in the House According to details, two private members’ bills namely the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the National Commission on the Status of Women (Amendment) Bill, 2019 were passed in the House.
Three other bills introduced in the House were the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Insertion of new section 297A & amendment in schedule II); the Islamabad Capital Territory Child Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020] (Insertion of new section 409A). All these bills were referred to the relevant committees for further deliberation.
A bill – the Trade Organizations (Amendment) Bill, 2020 – was deferred while four bills were dropped due to the movers’ absence. The dropped bills were the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Benazir Income Support Programme (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the Institute for Bioresources Research Bill, 2020. The House rejected a motion seeking leave to introduce the National Commission on the Rights of Child (Amendment) Bill, 2020 with majority votes.
The Chair gave a ruling to forward 50 Private Members’ Bills to Legislative Council which seek parliamentary review of the rules of various departments. Ten reports of the Standing Committees, nine private members’ bills, eight resolutions, five motions under Rule 259, a Calling Attention Notice and proposed amendments in the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in National Assembly 2007 were not taken up.—INP
