KARACHI: An accountability court on Friday fixed May 7 for indictment of former petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain and some senior officials of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) in a corruption reference.

The National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference last month against Dr Asim, SSGC managing director Khalid Rehman, some other former top officials of the gas utility and the OGDC and a senior official of the Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL) for allegedly misusing their authority and fraudulently awarding contracts of five gas fields to privately-managed gas processing company JJVL that had caused an alleged loss of Rs17.338 billion to the exchequer.

On previous hearings, the copies of documentary evidence of prosecution were provided to the suspects as required under Section 265-C (supply of statements and documents to the accused) of the criminal procedure code — a mandatory obligation before the indictment.

However, the defence lawyers moved a set of applications complaining that they had not received the complete set of copies of the prosecution documents.

The NAB prosecutor argued that they had provided all the available documents to the suspects and they would be tried on the basis of the same record.

After disposing of the applications, accountability court-IV judge Saad Qureshi adjourned the hearing till May 7 for indictment.

Man jailed for 24 years

An antiterrorism court handed down on Friday a collective sentence of 24 years in jail to a man in explosives and illicit weapon cases.

Ijaz Ahmed, said to be a political worker, was found guilty of carrying hand grenades and an unlicensed weapon in a Garden locality in 2014.

The ATC-V judge, Mohammed Jawaid Alam, sentenced 14 years in prison in the explosives case and 10 years in prison for keeping an illicit weapon. The court also imposed fines, but ruled that both the sentences would run concurrently.

The cases were registered under Section 4/5 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908 and Section 23(1) (a) of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013 read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 at the Nabi Bux police station.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2016