PAC members reject speaker's directive not to discuss Broadsheet.

ISLAMABAD -- In a new turn in the Broadsheet saga, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser on Thursday stopped the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of parliament from discussing the issue, saying the matter be left to the one-man inquiry commission of retired Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh.

However, the PAC members belonging to both the houses of parliament, including those from treasury benches, rejected the directive, saying it was an attempt to make redundant the country's highest accountability forum.

Moreover, PAC asked Shibli Faraz, federal minister for information and broadcasting, to probe how a discussion related to the alleged deletion of audit paras was leaked to the media.

PAC was scheduled to examine an audit report of the National Highway Authority (NHA) on Thursday but its chairman Rana Tanveer Hussain, due to the above mentioned development, held an hour-long in-camera session to discuss the issue with the members.

Sources privy to the committee's meeting said Mr Hussain shared with the members the NA speaker's communication not to take up the Broadsheet case in PAC. He said the speaker even warned that if the matter was added to the agenda, he would block holding of the committee's meeting.

It may be mentioned that last week PAC assigned the auditor general for Pakistan the task to probe in which circumstances the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had signed a contract with Broadsheet to trace the assets of Pakistani politicians.

PAC was of the view that the amount paid to the foreign company may be recovered from NAB if the audit report held the bureau responsible.

Recently, the government released $28 million to Broadsheet after the latter secured a verdict from UK's high court.

Broadsheet had asked for multimillion of dollars from Pakistan for identifying offshore assets of Pakistani citizens to NAB under an...