LAHORE: The suspension of membership of 137 Punjab Assembly members, both from the treasury and opposition, marred the house proceedings as business related to the suspended members could not be taken up on Monday.

Those suspended and barred from attending the proceedings for failing to submit their statements of assets and liabilities with the Election Commission of Pakistan as per law, included opposition leader Mahmoodur Raseed and ministers Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman (excise and taxation), Hameeda Waheedudin (women development), Bilal Yasin (food)and Iqbal Channar (cooperatives).

Interestingly enough, parliamen-tary secretaries of food and cooperatives departments Chaudhry AsadullahandMrsShaheenAshfaq, respectively were also among the suspended MPAs, so written questions about their respective departments could not be taken up during the Question Hour.

Out of the total 22 questions on agenda, only three -related to the human rights and minorities af fairs department -were taken up and responded to by Minister Tahir Khalil Sindhu.

He had also been tasked with tabling some government business, including important bills, in the absence of the law minister. But that could not happen after the opposition`s Ahsan Riaz Fatyana pointed out lack of quorum.

Because of suspension of 37pc of the members of the 371-stronghouse, the treasury could not assemble 94 MPAs -the minimum strength required to run house proceedings. Hence the house was adjourned for Tuesday morning.

Earlier, Mr Sindhu told the house in response to a written query by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf`s Nosheen Hamid that some transgender people could not be registered with the department for they did not wish to reveal their gender identity. He said there were 2,467 transgender people registered in the province for whom various trainings and reformation programmes were being run in cooperation with the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority.

About their harassment at the hands of police as well as general public, the minister said his department lacked any law enforcementagency to prevent harassment, so the issue should be taken up with the law department.

`What we can do is sensitise the masses and officials about the issue,` he said, adding the department was extending its wings to all 36 districts of the province to resolve various problems of the transgender community.

Earlier, Speaker Rana Iqbal chaired the proceedings for a few minutes at the beginning before handing over the charge to Deputy Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani.

The speaker, who underwent a surgical operation for appendicitis at the Services Hospital on Saturday evening, had come straight to his chamber in the assembly secretariat after being discharged from hospital.