ISLAMABAD, Dec 18: The Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly asked the Federal Board of Revenue chairman on Tuesday to investigate if Federal Tax Ombudsman Shoaib Suddle had provided information to a non-governmental organisation which had recently issued a report on alleged tax evasion by parliamentarians.

Presiding over a meeting of the PAC, its chairman Nadeem Afzal Gondal said the committee was against tax evaders, but nobody had the right to leak information about any individual which was not allowed under rules.

“We have received information from anonymous sources that the FTO office has provided the information which has been published in the form of a report to malign parliamentarians,” he said.

Mr Gondal also asked FBR Chairman Ali Arshad Hakeem to issue a clarification mentioning the names of those parliamentarians who had actually paid their taxes, but cited by the report as tax evaders.

Mr Hakeem informed the committee that he had already initiated an in-house inquiry to determine if someone in the FBR had cooperated with the author of the report.

The PPP’s Noor Alam Khan alleged that FBR officials were hand in glove with those who wanted to belittle parliamentarians.