ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned hearing on an appeal of jailed PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari till the third week of September in the Pakistan Steel mills corruption reference after the court was told that the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court would hear the matter on Sept 9.

A three-member SC bench, comprising Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice M. Javed Buttar, was told by lawyer of the National Accountability Bureaus Jaffer Hashmi that the high court would hear Mr Zardari's petition against his conviction in the Pakistan Steel mills reference on Sept 9.

On June 30, another SC benchhad set a three-week deadline for the high court to decide on the petition filed against Mr Zardari's conviction. On Tuesday, Mr Zardari's lawyer Dr Babar Awan cited the Adnan Khawaja case and argued that anyone who had served half his sentence was entitled to be released on bail.

But discrimination was being meted out to Asif Zardari who was being denied bail despite the fact that he had already served a major portion of the sentence. "My client will serve double the sentence period, if his appeal against the conviction is not decided in time," the counsel contended.

Mr Awan told the court that his client was arrested in June 1998 in the Steel Mills' case despite the fact that he had been behind bars since 1996. The high court had dismissed a miscellaneous application for bail filed by Mr Zardari's on Nov 14, 2002, in which he had requested the court to suspend the seven-year sentence handed down by the Rawalpindi Accountability Court in the steel mills reference.

The accountability court had also imposed a fine amounting to Rs40 million. In his petition before the Supreme Court, Mr Zardari stated that the high court had erred by not suspending his sentence and by not granting him bail.

The petition, filed under Article 185(3) of the Constitution, said that the high court's order was against the petitioner's fundamental constitutional rights, therefore, an abuse of the process of law and against the ends of justice, prejudicing the petitioner.

Mr Zardari also pleaded that the high court had failed to appreciate that he was entitled to the benefit of Section 382-B of the Criminal Procedure Code - a provision under which the sentence was counted from the date of arrest of an accused.

The high court had also failed to appreciate, he pleaded, that the alleged loss caused to the Pakistan Steel mills had already been compensated by the Mercury Corporation - a company in favour of which an advance of Rs40 million was sanctioned and disbursed by the steel mills allegedly under the direction of the petitioner.

He stated that the high court's order in which it had rejected his application was in violation to the provisions of the CrPC and the Constitution besides devoid of reasoning and against Section 24-A of the General Clauses Act.