The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Thursday passed the KP Ehtesab Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2015 to further strengthen the provincial accountability law.
The Amendment Bill presented by Provincial Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi received little resistance from the opposition as the Leader of Opposition, Maulana Lutfur Rehman complained that before the passage of the amendment it should have routed through the Select Committee of the house.
Manawar Khan, another JUI-F legislator, said that legislations are used to be framed for a long period therefore they should pass through detailed discussion. He called for sending the Bill to the Select Committee. However, Provincial Minister for Public Health Engineering (PHE) Shah Farman defended the Bill saying the amendments in the Act are being made on technical basis.
He said that the purpose of the Amendment Bill is to mitigate legal complications and provision of the justice of international standard. He said that unlike National Accountability Act, the KP Ehtesab Commission Act is lacking voluntarily return of the illegal assets and neither it is a mean of earning for the provincial government. He said that the passage of the Bill will increase the merit of the Act. Therefore its passage is necessary.
Speaker Asad Qaiser ruled that no debate on any legislation during its consideration stage.
To defuse the situation, Senior Minister for Local Governments Inayatullah Khan, who is chairman of the cabinet committee on the draft amendment bill, agreed with the contentions of opposition regarding consultations over the matter. He said that for future amendments, they will consult all stakeholders before finalizing of the draft. However, he said the passage of the presented amendment bill is very necessary.
Under the Amendment Bill, each such matter brought under this Act, will be disposed of within three months from the date of reference being made and after framing of charges for the trial of an accused, the court will hear the case on day to day basis.
Similarly, the court will grant any party more than one adjournment during the pendency of a matter from the filing of reference till its disposal. It shall be the responsibility of the Ehtesab Commission and the accused to arrange legal representation and presence of its attorney or pleader on each hearing, failing with the court will proceed in the absence of an attorney or pleader and under no circumstances the court will grant adjournment of more than seven days.
All offences under this Act will be non-bailable and no court will have jurisdiction to grant bail to any person accused of an offence under this Act and accused convicted by the court for an offence under this Act will not be entitled to any remission I his sentence.
The speaker put the matter to voice vote and the house adopted it unanimously.
The house also passed The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2015, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Establishment of Information Technology Board (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2015.
