Speaking to The Express Tribune, the source said Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan was “fully cognizant” of the ramifications of such a step and how this unpleasant course could cast a long shadow over his stature in the near future.
He claimed that the speaker felt red lines were crossed during the session and that if barricades were not brought into place, the situation would further deteriorate.
He said the treasury benches would have wanted to respond in the same coin, tossing reading material at the opposition and hurling swear words at them.
He said that a lesson had to be taught. He explained that this reference, for now, is a smoke screen designed to ensure an agreement is reached for the smooth functioning of the parliament.
The source further clarified that the treatment meted out to Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz during the session was not the be-all and end-all of the matter, contrary to speculation that Maryam was his red line.
Instead, he pointed out that such rowdy behaviour and acts of vandalism are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated, adding that the speaker wanted the opposition to own up to their behaviour and set the record straight.
“If the opposition can agree to this,” he said, “there will be no reference against anyone”.
Asked whether the speaker was backpedalling after sensing the political cost such a move might carry, the source denied any such retreat. “There was no change of heart,” he said. “The speaker had never intended to get anyone disqualified.”
The source also said that if the matter had ended at mere suspension, the opposition would have challenged the speaker’s authority. But they eventually “conceded to a fine and suspension”.
He admitted that the speaker, well-versed in the law of the land, took this very technical route to teach the opposition party a lesson about what it means to be on the receiving end of “such dark judgments”.
He said that hearing the opposition talk about former chief justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa’s judgment was “music to their ears”.
He added that if Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmad Khan Bhachar reaches out to the speaker, the speaker will record his reason in favour of the MPAs on the application that has landed in his office.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Punjab Assembly speaker seems to have altered his position – from stating that MPAs whose actions were unbecoming of members of parliament would not be tolerated in the assembly, to a later position that MPAs had approached him with a request in the backdrop of the Panama judgment of Justice (r) Asif Saeed Khosa.