RAWALPINDI, May 22: An accountability court adjourned on Thursday hearing of NAB references against PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and members of his family after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) failed to submit its reply.

Judge Khalid Mehmood will resume the hearing on the Hudabiya Paper Mills, Ittefaq Foundry and Assets references on June 19.

NAB deputy prosecutor-general Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta submitted in the court that he could not obtain instructions about the references because the bureau was ‘overburdened’ with cases and appeals filed under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

The court has neither summoned the accused nor issued arrest warrants. The cases were reopened in August last year.

The court has been waiting for the response of the prosecution to initiate legal proceedings which were adjourned in April 2000 when the accused left the country.

In the Hudabiya Paper Mills case, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, Mian Abbas Sharif, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Haroon Pasha and Senator Ishaq Dar were charged with securing a large amount of money as loan in the name of the mill and using it for another purpose, thereby causing a huge loss to the national exchequer.

In the Ittefaq Foundry case, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Mukhtar Hassan, Kamal Qureshi and a couple of other people were accused of misusing loans and causing a loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer.

In the assets reference, Mian Nawaz Sharif and Mian Shahbaz Sharif, their father late Mian Sharif and mother Shamim Akhtar and other members of the family were charged with accumulating of money and assets beyond their declared means of income by misusing their authority.