ISLAMABAD: A bright sunny day turned out to be a day of shame inside National Assembly on Friday, although the blame was hurled from both sides of aisle before the house lost about half of the last day of its working week.

“You should be ashamed,” shouted Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali repeatedly from his seat at a Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) member, Rai Ahsan Nawaz, for obstructing proceedings by pointing out a lack of quorum soon after a smooth question hour.

“You also should be ashamed,” retorted the PTI member, insisting that the treasury benches must ensure sufficient attendance of their members, leaving no way for Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi but to order a head count.

But assembling at least 86 members for a quorum in the 342-seat house seemed a Herculean task when members of the main opposition Pakistan People's Party were absent to be present at the mausoleum of their party's founder and former prime minister, ZulfikarAli Bhutto, at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh to mark the 35th anniversary of his execution and many from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N as well other parties were not around ahead of the two-day weekend.

A suspension of the house for some time to enable the PML-N and its allies bring in their members who might have been in the lobbies or sipping tea at the cafeteria brought more despair than hope as whatever opposition members who were present before the break did not return for a second count and a few heavyweights of the treasury benches who did come were of no help.

That forced the chair to adjourn the house for the day somewhat early before the Friday prayers, until 4pm on Monday, at the cost of the remaining agenda that could not be taken up -- two opposition call-attention notices and a government bill proposing some important amendments to the Federal Services Tribunal Act, 1973.

The bill seeks to make appointment of the tribunal's members in line with procedures followed for judiciary, make the tribunal financially autonomous and empower it to get its decisions implemented.

Friday's first loss of business by the house for lack quorum during its current session, which began on March 24, didn't seem to augur well for the treasury benches after a feel-good air following a March 31 indictment of former military president Pervez Musharraf by a special court on charges of high treason and the government's refusal to allow him to travel to the United Arab Emirates to see his ailing mother hospitalised there.

It will require some government effort to ensure a big attendance when the house is expected to take up on Monday a key law to strengthen counter-terrorism measures and prosecution proposed in two government bills based on two presidential ordinances - Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, 2013, and the Protection of Pakistan (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014.

Science and Technology Minister Zahid Hamid, who also oversees the government's legislative business, told Dawn on Friday that the measures proposed in the two bills would be consolidated in what would be known, after passage by both houses of parliament, as Protection of Pakistan Act.

While both the ordinances are in force -- with the life of the first Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, 2013, extended for a further 90-day period until June through a resolution adopted by the house in its previous session, the government can be sure of pushing a consolidated bill through the National Assembly where it has an overwhelming majority.

But the future of the legislation, which includes controversial provisions like empowering security forces to shoot terrorism suspects at sight, detention of suspects for up to 90 days, secret trials and transfer of cases to special courts, will remain uncertain in the opposition-controlled Senate until the main opposition parties there are brought on board.