Islamabad (January 12, 2018): The National Assembly has passed the Supreme Court and High Court Extension of Jurisdiction to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas Bill 2017.
The bill moved by Minister for Law Bashir Virk extends the jurisdiction of Supreme Court of Pakistan and Peshawar High Court to the federally administered tribal areas.
The bill was opposed by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F)Naeema Kishwar, who presented several amendments which were rejected by the House.
Speaking on the bill, Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch said credit goes to the present government for abolition of FCR and extending of the jurisdiction of superior courts to the tribal areas.
He said today all the political parties are united for the mainstreaming of tribal areas. He said the tribal areas will also be merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at an appropriate time as per the recommendation of the FATA reforms committee.
In his remarks, Leader of Opposition Khurshid Shah said that today we have taken another step to the mainstreaming of tribal areas.
Earlier, the house held discussion on situation arising out of the rape and murder of seven year old girl Zainab, in Kasur.
Opening the debate, Leader of Opposition Khurshid Shah said that the horrendous incident has aggrieved the entire country.
He regretted that the police have so far failed to nab the culprit. He said besides arresting the culprit, the government needs to take steps to avoid recurrence of such chilling incidents in future.
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Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohsin Shah Nawaz Ranjah urged the political parties to doing politics on the matter and rather sit together to chalk out a strategy to avert cases of child abuse.
He said the present government has carried out legislation and declared child abuse and seduction as a crime. He said there is need to ensure speedy trials in such incidents.
Shireen Mazari said the murderers and rapists of children should be hanged publicly.
The House will now meet again on Monday at 4pm.
Earlier, a meeting of the House Business Advisory Committee was held with Speaker of the National Assembly in the chair which decided that the current session of the National Assembly will continue till 25th of this month.
The lawmakers from FATA have been demanding the merger of the tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. However, despite agreement, the government has failed to bring the bill in Parliament as it is opposed by its allied parties: JUI-F and Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.
In the last session of the National Assembly, the opposition had boycotted the House to protest the government’s failure to table the FATA Reforms Bill.
In a meeting on December 26, 2017, the federal cabinet approved the formation of a high-level national implementation committee for FATA reforms.
“The meeting granted ex-post facto approval to the formation of National Implementation Committee on FATA Reforms. Minister for Defence and Commander 11 Corps have been included in the high-level implementation committee,” read a statement issued after the meeting.
The KP Assembly had adopted a resolution on December 14, 2016 in favour of merging FATA with KP with the aim of rehabilitating and reconstructing the infrastructure including roads, communications, power lines, water supply, education and health facilities.
The recommendations to bring the tribal areas at par with the rest of the country were approved by the federal cabinet on March 2, 2017 but the matter has been delayed since then.
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