ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: Treasury benches in the National Assembly lambasted Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Irshad Hasan Khan on Friday for his warning to suspend legislators failing to disclose their assets, and threatened more action for a possible breach of their privilege.

The unusual assault on a senior state functionary, which was joined by two government ministers and also had a token opposition support, came in a sitting of the lower house that was marked by confusion, lack of quorum and a protest walkout by opposition parties.

In a belated move, the opposition-less house also passed a resolution endorsing policies enunciated by President Pervez Musharraf in his Sept 24 address to the UN General Assembly for peace with India and an “enlightened moderation” in the Islamic world.

The criticism of the CEC — a former chief justice of the Supreme Court — came immediately after the houses reassembled following the first of two suspensions of proceedings because of lack of quorum.

Before that, the house witnessed a brief furore as a member of the opposition Balochistan National Party (Mengal), Abdur Rauf Mengal, protested against the recent registration of a treason case against him, Senator Sanaullah Baloch and four other party members in Balochistan.

Several members of the ruling coalition turned their guns against the CEC after an outspoken PML-Q member from Vehari district, Mohammad Ishaq Khakwani, speaking on a point of order, protested at a CEC statement on Wednesday that most of them regarded as derogatory against legislators.

Members of parliament and the four provincial assemblies were required by the Representation of the People Act, 1976, to file statements of their assets and liabilities by Sept 30 before the Election Commission, which says it will notify the defaulters by Oct 15.

“Those who failed to file statements of assets and liabilities will cease to be members of parliament and of provincial assemblies, as the case may,” the CEC’s statement on Wednesday said.

“This does not behove such a senior official,” Mr Khakwani said about the man he alleged owed his job to government favours.

Member after member criticized the CEC despite an assurance from PPP-Patriots parliamentary leader Sher Afgan Niazi that the matter had been discussed by the ruling coalition and would be studied further before the question of possible breach of privilege could be raised in the next session.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Raza Hayat Hiraj, speaking for the government, agreed with the view of his coalition colleagues that the CEC’s reported statement was “quite derogatory” that he said should be clarified before a parliamentary special committee.

But Food and Agriculture Minister Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind was more bitter and accused the CEC of being impolite with him by not responding to his request to discuss a matter raised about the district council election in his home district of Kachhi in Balochistan province.

The minister suggested that state functionaries should also be required to submit statements of assets and liabilities like the parliamentarians and said: “The treatment given to us is intolerable.”

Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada (N.A., Bahawalpur) said those living in glass houses should not throw stones at others and offered to swap his entire property with a single house owned by a judge, bureaucrat or general in Islamabad.

During the heated debate, in which several other treasury members also spoke, opposition member Khwaja Mohammad Asif (PML- N, Sialkot) entered the hall apparently to point out a possible lack of quorum but preferred to add his voice to a running denunciation of bureaucracy and also make a swipe at army generals for toppling civilian governments.

He said time had come for politicians, despite their own mutual differences, to unite on the one-point agenda to “throw out outsiders” or continue to suffer the treatment given them by the military.

Some members on the treasury benches protested against what they saw as derogatory remarks by Khwaja Asif about the military. But the PML-N member said he did not talk against the military as an institution but about those who used it for being in power.

But as the issue of the CEC’s statement did not appear to have died down, PML-Q chief whip and Labour and Manpower Minister Abdul Sattar Laleka came up with the resolution endorsing President Musharraf’s speech in the General Assembly.

PRO-MUSHARRAF RESOLUTION: Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain put the resolution to vote — which was a unanimous “yes” — after apparently paying a deaf ear to opposition member Nabil Ahmed Gabol (PPP, Karachi) who came to the house to point out a perceived lack of quorum.