Senate session adjourned until Dec 29 due to lack of quorum

ISLAMABAD (APP) - The Senate session on Tuesday was adjourned due to a lack of quorum and ruckus that forced the chair to wind up the meeting of the House without taking any substantial agenda item.

After Senator Saadia Abbasi succeeded in presenting her motion to establish the first Parliamentary Caucus on Water Resources, the senator requested the chair to talk about it which was turned down by the chair.

Senate Chairman Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani directed the Caretaker Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Murtaza Solangi to table his bill for amendment titled “The Motion Pictures Ordinance, 1979 [The Motion Pictures (Amendment) Bill, 2023].”

As the minister initiated to present his bill, and started reading the text of the Bill, the senators from different political parties started commotion, hence hampering his speech. However, Minister Murtaza Solangi continued and noted that the amendment was pertaining to censorship and regulation of the exhibition of films by means of cinematographs.

Amid the rising ruckus, the minister responded to the dissenting Senators saying, “The issuance of any ordinance is the prerogative of the government under Article 89 of the Constitution, and it is important for us to lay these ordinances in the form of bills and it’s the House’s job to make any decision on it.”

After an interjection from the members of the House, the Senate chairman directed to point out the quorum and start of the headcount. However, after falling short of quorum the House was adjourned till December 29, 2023, to meet again at 1030 hours.