RAWALPINDI, Sept 7: The Accountability Court No 4 on Friday turned down a fresh request of prosecution lawyer to issue arrest warrants of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif in three corruption references, and adjourned the hearing till Sept 13 instead of Sept 10 as sought by the government lawyer.

In a short order, judge Khalid Mehmood reiterated his earlier observation that issuing of warrants was linked to the return of the Sharif brothers and the Supreme Court in its verdict had allowed the brothers to return to Pakistan.

In a similar order issued on Aug 25, the judge had observed that arrest warrants could not be issued till the return of the Sharif brothers.

On Friday, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was represented by Senior Prosecution General (SPG) Arif Ali Zafar Chohan who requested the judge to set Sept 10 as the next date of hearing.

He said that NAB chairman had the authority to take action against the accused and issue arrest warrants under Section 24-C of the NAB Ordinance 1999.

In response, the judge observed that the chairman was free to use his discretionary powers.

The three references against the Sharif brothers are related to the Hudabia Paper Mills, Ittifaq Foundry and Raiwind Assets. The cases were adjourned sine die on April 12, 2001, after Nawaz Sharif and his family went to Saudi Arabia under a deal with the government. The request for reopening the cases was admitted by the court on Aug 17.

In a separate case, the judge admitted an application of the NAB to adjourn hearing of corruption cases against a federal minister sine die, saying NAB authorities needed more time for investigation since some applications had been moved in the cases.

Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan, his two brothers, two sisters and around 250 other accused were summoned by the court in a land scandal case on its last hearing on Sept 5. The corruption case was filled with Accountability Court by NAB on Sept 3.