ISLAMABAD: The opposition parties on Wednesday submitted a requisition notice to the Senate Secretariat seeking a session of the upper house of parliament to take up a number of crucial political matters, including a resolution against alleged human rights violations being committed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the government’s “crackdown” on the opposition workers during the PDM public meetings in various cities of the country.

According to the five-point agenda attached to the requisition notice, the opposition parties also want to have a debate on “the massive scale of pre-poll, polling day rigging and result-tampering fraud in the recent exercise called the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) elections”.

The requisition notice has been moved under Article 54(3), read with Article 61 of the Constitution, under which Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani is bound to convene the sitting within 14 days of the receipt of the notice, i.e. by Dec 30.

Mandviwala’s privilege motion also on agenda of the requisitioned session

The agenda also includes discussion on and admission of the privilege motion moved by Deputy Senate Chairman Saleem Mandviwala for allegedly carrying out his character assassination by initiating an inquiry against him in a benami transaction case.

“The parliament has the right to question all institutions and ask for transparency in their actions,” said the opposition parties in their requisition notice.

The opposition wants a “discussion, consideration and passage/adoption of a resolution against human rights violation by NAB”. Through another resolution it seeks “verification of degrees, domicile certificates and asset declaration of NAB authorities/officials”.

The move to requisition the Senate session had been initiated by Mr Mandviwala who recently through news conferences accused NAB of committing serious human rights violations and vowed to get it included among the internationally blacklisted organisations.

Mr Mandviwala alleged that a number of people had either died in NAB custody or committed suicide after receiving notices from the accountability watchdog and announced that the Senate would now hold NAB itself accountable for the first time in the country’s history.

Hours after Mr Mandviwala’s news conference, NAB issued a rejoinder and claimed that no accused had ever died in its custody and that the anti-graft watchdog would initiate action against those levelling allegations against it without evidence.

“No person has died in NAB’s custody. NAB rejects all such media reports and it will issue legal notices to all such persons who have levelled baseless and concocted allegations against NAB,’’ said the bureau’s statement.

“NAB asks them to prove their claims about any death in NAB custody within 14 days, otherwise legal proceedings will be initiated against them as per law,” said the statement issued on Dec 8.

On the other hand, Mr Mandviwala declared that “now the contest will be between the Senate of Pakistan and NAB”.

Mr Mandviwala, who belongs to the PPP, had claimed that he had the support of each and every senator sitting on both sides of the aisle and all senators wanted him to expose NAB.

However, the requisition notice carries the signatures of only the opposition members.

The Senate deputy chairman, who is among the senators who will retire on March 11 next year, had said the degrees of the NAB officials would be checked and “first time, it will happen that someone will hold NAB accountable for its deeds”. He had also announced that the NAB officials would be taken to task for keeping the “assets beyond means”.

“I am going to approach every ambassador in Pakistan. I am going to approach every human rights committee of every parliament I know in the world to inform them about human rights violations being committed by NAB,” he had said, adding that he would ensure that NAB was blacklisted internationally.

The Senate deputy chairman had held a similar news conference on Nov 29, days after NAB informed an accountability court that it had frozen 3.1 million shares of different companies registered in the name of Mr Mandviwala with the SECP in connection with the fake bank accounts case.

The NAB chairman had halted the proceedings of the case and also held a meeting with Mr Mandviwala the next day. However, after his meeting with NAB chairman, Mr Mandviwala had anno­unced that he would continue his mission to expose NAB’s alleged illegal activities.

Meanwhile, the opposition has included “the government’s unprecedented crackdown on opposition workers” on the agenda.

“Disproportionate responses such as arrest warrants of political activists by the government in such situations can lead to dangerous violations of fundamental rights but it seems the government is least concerned with democratic norms or obligations,” said the opposition in its requisition notice.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2020