LAHORE: An accountability court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing in Ramzan Sugar Mills reference for further arguments on acquittal application of Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz.

Earlier, PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza appeared before the court. Hamza’s counsel resumed arguments on the acquittal application, urging the court to acquit the petitioner in the case as there was no possibility of conviction.

Presiding Judge Sajid Ali Awan will resume the hearing on Feb 24.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) accused Shehbaz of issuing a directive, being chief minister, for the construction of a drain, mainly for the use of Ramzan Sugar Mills owned by his sons –Hamza and Suleman. It said an amount of Rs200 million was spent on the project from the public money.

Later, Shehbaz also appeared before another accountability court to attend the hearing of Punjab Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme reference.

The defence counsel completed cross-examination of a prosecution witness and the court put off the hearing till Feb 24 with a direction to the NAB to produce more witnesses.

Former principal secretary to the prime minister Fawad Hassan Fawad, former head of Lahore Development Authority Ahad Khan Cheema are also accused in this reference.

The NAB alleged that Shehbaz and other suspects caused a huge loss to the national exchequer by awarding the contract of the housing scheme to a company without bidding.

PROMOTED: The Lahore High Court has granted time scale promotion to five private secretaries (BS-18) as senior private secretaries (BS-19) by computing their service served as personal and private secretary.

The promoted officers are Arshad Hussain, Murtaza Hassan, Hafiz Muhammad Asif Khan, Anwaar Ahmad Nasim and Rao Azmat.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022