QUETTA, Nov 30: Supreme Court Judge Javed Iqbal has suspended a decision of the Balochistan High Court granting remission to a prisoner convicted in a corruption case. The court issued the order on Wednesday on a petition filed by the National Accountability Bureau against the BHC verdict.

The NAB had filed the corruption reference against wheat contractor Abdul Sattar Lasi and the trail court jailed and fined him. The BHC and the Supreme Court rejected appeals against the judgment of the accountability court.

Convicts in NAB cases were entitled to remissions in prison terms but an amendment in the NAB Ordinance scrapped this entitlement.

A division bench of the BHC on Oct 31 accepted the petitioner’s plea to get the benefit of remissions because he had been convicted before the ordinance was amended.

The SC judge on Wednesday directed that regular hearings on the petition would be held in Islamabad.

Advocate Mohammad Aslam Chisti appeared for Abdul Sattar Lasi while Advocate Ashraf Tanoli represented the NAB.