Bills on trade bodies registration, dispute resolution cleared

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce approved two important bills of the commerce ministry on the registration of trade bodies and speedy trade dispute resolution. The committee meeting chaired by its chairman Khursheed Ahmed Junejo approved the Trade Organisations (Amendment) Bill 2022 and the Trade Dispute Resolution Bill 2022. Both were government bills.

The committee approved two major changes to the Trade Organisations (Amendment) Bill 2022. Under section 1, subsection (4) of Act II of 2013, the expression '1st January 2022" will be substituted with "1st January 2023" In Section 2, Clause (P) of Act II of 2013, regulator means the Director General or any officer not less than grade 20 appointed by the division concerned to perform functions under this Act.

Two amendments were approved in the Trade Dispute Resolution Bill, 2022. By amending Section 9, sub-section (d), the word "thirtyfive" shall be substituted with "forty-five".

As part of another amendment, the tenure of employment will be three years, extendable for another three years on satisfactory performance or if necessary.

The meeting was attended by Muhammad Aslam Bhootani, Usman Ibrahim, Ms Shaista Pervaiz, Ms Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani. Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar and senior officers from the ministry also participated.

The Supreme Court sought a record from the federal government and the provinces of transfers and postings in police departments over the past eight years, while noting that the frequent shuffling of officers affects their command and performance.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial issued the directives while hearing a petition of political interference in the transfers and postings of the Punjab police. The other members of the bench are Justice Ayesha Malik and Justice Athar Minallah.

The petitioner, Rana Tahir Saleem, a resident of Faisalabad, is seeking appropriate orders to stop illegal political interference in police matters. He also raised the issue of blatant violation of the Police Order 2002 regarding the security of tenure and in transfer-postings of police personnel from station house officers to inspector general of police.

With the commencement of the hearing, the petitioner's counsel argued that police officials were posted and transferred in the province as a result of political intervention. "The recent transfer of DPO Layyah was also on similar grounds," he claimed.

CJP Bandial, while sharing the statistics furnished by the lawyer, said the record showed an average term of a DPO in office was five months. "As many as 268 DPOs have been transferred in Punjab in the last four years," the chief justice observed.

Justice Ayesha Malik asked the counsel about the source of the data.

He responded that the data was obtained from the Capital City Police Office.

Justice Athar Minallah remarked that political postings in the police department affect the criminal justice system.