Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The 12-member parliamentary committee proposed to draft terms of reference for Panama leaks investigation could not be notified after Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani expressed serious reservations over the consultation process in this regard.

Sources said the Senate chairman is extremely upset over the way his office was ignored in the consultation process to constitute the committee.

Formal notification for formation of the 12-member committee is likely to be issued on Monday.

It has been learnt that Rabbani is not happy the way National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq initiated the process and the government and opposition parties got themselves engaged in it without taking him into the loop.

Sources said National Assembly speaker wrote a letter to Senate chairman that a parliamentary committee was being constituted. The chairman, sources said, wanted to be an active player in the formation of the parliamentary committee.

It has been learnt that Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, Khursheed Shah and Aitzaz Ahsan met Chairman Raza Rabbani wherein he expressed his reservations in this regard.

Sources said both government and opposition have forwarded names of the senators to be included in the committee to the chairman. But, sources added, Rabbani has yet not forwarded those to Speaker Ayaz Sadiq for formal issue of notification. The NA speaker kept on waiting for Rabbani’s formal letter to issue notification of the committee on Friday. Later in the evening, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq left for his home constituency without issuing the notification.

Sources said the speaker will issue committee’s formal notification once he gets names of the senators from Rabbani. The matter has been deferred until Monday when Senate chairman is likely to forward names to the speaker.

The government has finalised names of Ishaq Dar, Pervez Rasheed, Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafiq, Hasil Bazinjo and Akram Durrani for the parliamentary committee. Whereas, the opposition members include Aitzaz Ahsan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Barrister Saif, Ilyas Bilour, Tariq Bashir Cheema and Sahibzada Tariqullah.