In the house of 104 senators, 60 do not even pay any income tax and prominent among them are opposition leader in Senate Ishaq Dar, PPP stalwart Aitzaz Ahsan, Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain and many other top notches.
Soon after the question-hour, Senator Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain while speaking on a point of order came up with an explanation that he and his cousin Chaudhary Parvaiz Elahi and brother Chaudhary Wajahat Hussain never skipped a national responsibility of paying income tax. "My name has also been included in the list of the accused, who evade taxes...I just want to clarify that I've paid Rs 6,875093 tax last year while Chaudhary Parvaiz Elahi and Chaudhary Wajaht Hussain have paid Rs 1263400 and Rs 380991, respectively," he added
Senator Farhatullah Babar was next man who stood up to clear the name of President Asif Ali Zardari, saying he regularly submit his income tax return. "My name is not in the list of tax evaders but as spokesman of the President, I would like to make it sure that all his income tax returns are up to date," he added. Deputy chairman Sabir Baloch regretted for dubbing president Zardari as 'tax evader.' He said that the media must avoid maligning the president, who is symbol of federation and people have sentimental affiliations with him. "The president, prime minister and governors are exempted from paying income tax but even then they regularly pay their taxes," he maintained.
Senator Ishaq Dar accused media of working on payroll to malign the politicians. Without mentioning anybody, he said that it was a conspiracy to malign politicians on the dictation of some industrialist-cum-politicians. "The income tax return is the most confidential...which has been wilfully leaked out to media by some vested elements [and] the FBR must probe into it," he added.
He also demanded of the government to form a committee to hold an inquiry against top media conglomerates to ascertain the fact that how much tax they pay besides exposing them for evading tax. He also flayed media for publishing the report without getting the version of the MPs.
He admitted that the author of the report had sent a circular seeking comment of the parliamentarians before publishing the data. But at the same, the enraged PML-N stalwart wittingly or unwittingly kept on saying a journalist is nobody to ask an MP for such details.
Aitzaz Ahsan of PPP also joined hands with his fellow colleagues and earnestly demanded to form a parliamentary panel to hold an inquiry against leading media outlets, which could ascertain how much sales tax they pay and how much is payable by them. Afrasiab Khattak of Awami National party (ANP) was the only senator who plainly told his fellow MPs not to indulge in such investigations against media and instead put some defamation laws in place. "If you have strong defamation laws, there will no baseless stories on media against politicians and the journalists will automatically avoid publishing baseless stories," he maintained.
Haji Adeel of ANP was also upset over the report and said that his family regularly pays tax for the last 60 years. The journalists should not come up with such stories unless they had proof. He also demanded an investigation into the matter.
QUESTION-HOUR The house was informed that 58 percent population of the country was food insecure while 29 percent facing severe hunger. In a written reply to a question of Senator Nuzhat Sadiq of PML-N, Mir Israullah Zehri minister for food security while quoting a survey conducted by Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in 2011 told the house that 58 percent of the pollution was food insecure. "Out of the total food insecure pollution, 29 percent is food insecure with severe hunger," he added.