ISLAMABAD: The ruling coalition on Monday had a free hand to secure nod of a parliamentary committee for a constitutional amendment bill in the absence of the opposition members and majority of its total strength.

Just eight out of seventeen members of the National Assembly Committee on Law turned out to ponder over the 20th constitutional amendment bill, seeking legalization of some two dozens by-elections, declared invalid by the Supreme Court, a participant told The News.

Of the eight attendees, the sole member of the opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Sardar Yaqoob Nasir left the meeting after a while when it was decided that the bill in question would be considered in some other meeting as there were no adequate number of members present in this session, he told this correspondent.

He later expressed surprise when he was told that the committee has approved it. “I was informed that since the members present were in a small number, the consideration of the bill has been deferred.”

Committee Chairperson Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry neither bothered to attend her phone nor did she respond to several messages dropped with her staff at her lodge. She was among the eight members, who attended the meeting.

Among those present were five MPs belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) – Begum Chaudhry, Ijaz Virk, Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhry, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, and Syed Naveed Qamar – and one member each of the PML-Q (Riaz Fatiana) and Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (SA Iqbal Qadri).

Four PML-N members and two MPs each of PPP and PML-Q and an independent member assented from the meeting. They included Eng. Amir Muqam, Justice (retd)) Iftikhar Ahmad Cheema, Mrs. Saira Afzal Tarar, Zahid Hamid, Tariq Shabbir, Saeed Ahmed Zafar, Raza Hayat Harraj, Anusha Rahman Khan and Fakharunnisa Khokhar.

The poor attendance in the committee reflected the little interest of the lawmakers in the legislative process especially when it related to an important constitutional amendment. Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has announced that the government would not support the amendment and challenged the ruling coalition to pass it with the two-thirds majority if it was insistent upon approving it without the opposition’s support.

The ruling coalition wants to rush the amendment through the parliament by February 6, the next date of hearing at the Supreme Court, to give cover to the federal and provincial lawmakers, who returned in by-elections held in the absence of a properly constitutionally formed Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). By getting the bill passed by the standing committee on law on Monday, the government aims at telling the court that it has significantly moved to validate the by-polls.

Also included in the lot, whose by-elections are in question, are Finance Minister Senator Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and Petroleum Minister Senator Dr Asim Hussain.

The by-polls arranged between April 2010 and June 2011 were declared invalid by the Supreme Court with the direction to make them constitutional as the ECP was not properly constituted as per Article 218 when these were held. This was the intervening period between the passage of the 18th amendment and the constitutional composition of the ECP.

It was mandatory to constitute the ECP afresh as per the 18th amendment, but the federal law ministry paid no attention and kept delaying the formation of the ECP despite several reminders by the ECP secretary.

The legislators on whose head the sword hangs belong to the PPP, PML-N, Functional League, PML-Q etc. Nine of them are members of the National Assembly, three are Senators and the rest are members of Provincial Assemblies.