ISLAMABAD: Despite showing some unease over a perceived attempt to belittle parliament, the treasury benches joined in a unanimous adoption of an opposition motion in the National Assembly on Tuesday asking its speaker to form a committee to investigate allegations of non-payment of taxes by parliamentarians.

Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had earlier agreed to take up, out of turn, the motion tabled by Asad Umar and six other members of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) on the allegation of tax non-payment by parliamentarians on the insistence of PTI’s chairman Imran Khan and vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi — both of them noting that it was the sixth attempt to have the motion discussed — as well as support from opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah of the PPP.

Even after Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada agreed to the adoption of the motion, two members of the ruling PML-N from Punjab, Sheikh Rohale Asghar and Abdul Mannan, did not seem comfortable over the move, pointing out that all parliamentarians were paying taxes deducted from salaries at source.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Pervaiz Rashid also opposed any more discussion on the issue at the time after the house adopted the PTI motion, which said that the speaker constitute a special committee of up to 10 members belonging to major political parties “to investigate the allegation of non-payment of taxes by a number of parliamentarians and report within 90 days”. But PTI’s senior figure, Javed Hashmi, called for the probe to be extended beyond salaries paid to parliamentarians and include disclosure of their assets held abroad and made subject to the taxation system.—Raja Asghar