Whereas a number of bills have been passed or returned unsigned by the President House, there is one such bill that has not yet even been forwarded to the Aiwan-e-Sadr despite the fact that the Upper House of the Parliament passed it on August 7.
\nMore than 15 days in the line yet the bill titled \u2018Protection of Family Life & Wedlock Bill 2023\u201d is lying either in the Senate Secretariat or the Prime Minister\u2019s Office and no one has bothered to forward it to the President House for signing.
\nRecently, President Arif Alvi returned around 13 bills without signing and asked the Parliament to reconsider them. On the other hand, he signed a number of bills also, making them act of parliament but the bill related to 300 teachers of Islamabad whose family life and career relied on the passage of the bill has not yet been moved to the President House.
\nThe sources, familiar with the development said that since the bill belonged to the teachers\u2019 welfare, which has never been a top priority of any political party or its government, the same mindset prevails in the government of Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar.
\nThe officers of the PMO or Senate Secretariat also understand that it was a \u2018less-important\u2019 bill and no one would ever hold them accountable for delaying it.
\nTo a question if President Arif Alvi will raise any objection to the bill, a senior official of the President House said raising an objection or not raising an objection was a matter of secondary nature. \u201cFirst and foremost, the bill should be put before the President and if it is genuinely concerned with the welfare of the lady teachers working in Islamabad schools under wedlock as the title suggests, I think he will have no problem signing it,\u201d said the president.
\nMeanwhile, senior officials of the PM Office and Senate Secretariat when contacted admitted the bill was lying at the table of a Deputy Secretary (DS) and the officer concerned owing to some family emergency was on leave. When asked what the normal procedure was in case an officer was on leave, he said it depended on how important the legislation was considered. \u201cTeachers\u2019 matter is not so important and it could wait,\u201d he said.
\nThe affected teachers, on the other hand, have expressed their surprise and anguish over the usual bureaucratic mindset prevailing in PM Kakar\u2019s government that officials were deciding on their own which bills should be forwarded to the President House and which bills should be kept waiting. \u201cThere should be a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for each bill and a certain period of time should be allocated to send it to the President House for the president\u2019s signature once it is passed by the Senate of Pakistan,\u201d said a lady teacher while expressing her dismay at the PMO\u2019s lack of interest in teachers\u2019 bill. Whether it is the Senate Secretariat or the PMO they should send the bill to the President for signing without further delay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whereas a number of bills have been passed or returned unsigned by the President House, there is one such bill that has not yet even been forwarded to the Aiwan-e-Sadr despite the fact that the Upper House of the Parliament passed it on August 7. More than 15 days in the line yet the bill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-350934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national"},"yoast_head":"\n