'Irrelevant legislation' in Finance Bill flayed

ISLAMABAD — Senate on Wednesday strongly criticized increase in sales tax and inclusion of irrelevant pieces of legislation in the proposed finance bill for the fiscal year 2008-09.

Senator Anwar Bhinder, Professor Khursheed Ahmad and Khalid Ranjha moved a privilege motion against the inclusion of 26 amendments in the finance bill for next year, which, they said, were irrelevant to the finance. The Senate, however, referred the motion to the Senate Privileges Committee.

Speaking on the motion, Senator Anwar Bhinder said that by inserting irrelevant pieces of legislation in the proposed finance bill, the government had bypassed the upper chamber of the Parliament in the process of lawmaking and had breached the privilege of the Senate.

Leader of the House in the Senate, Senator Raza Rabbani admitted that there were 12 pieces of legislation in the finance bill, which were irrelevant to finance. However, he opined that the privilege motion was premature as no breach of privilege of the House was committed so far, as, he said, the finance bill for the next year was only a proposal by then.

Moreover, he said that former Chairman Senate Wasim Sajjad had given a ruling over a privilege motion moved by Senator Prof Khursheed Ahmad that it was the privilege of Speaker National Assembly to declare any piece of legislation as part of money bill. However, he said that he had no objection on referring the motion to the privilege committee.

Senator Dr Khalid Ranjha admitted that such items were made part of the money bill during the previous governments but he questioned as to why should the House insist on repeating wrong practices of the past. He further said that courts could be moved on the issue but he added that leaving such matters to the courts was a defeatist approach because the Parliament was the supreme institution and courts were its subordinate.