ISLAMABAD, April 28: National Accountability Bureau Prosecutor-General Irfan Qadir on Wednesday failed to produce, on the Supreme Court's orders , written directives of an accountability court concerning re-examination of a witness in an illegal assets reference against former senator Asif Ali Zardari.

"You are not sure whether the witness was re-examined or not? You should have come prepared," observed Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui while hearing a petition of Mr Zardari against the re-summoning of a witness, Naqi Imam Malik, after four months by the prosecution in the assets case.

"You wasted the entire day, during which the cases of other appellants remained held up for nothing," the chief justice observed. The bench included Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.

The chief justice directed the prosecutor-general to produce the relevant documents within a week. The petition would be fixed for hearing after the respondent submitted the documents.

The controversy surfaced when Mr Zardari's counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada questioned the prosecutor-general's statement that Mr Imam had been re-examined by the accountability court on May 18, 2002.

However, when the bench asked whether the prosecutor-general was sure about Mr Imam's re-examination, he went through his records but could not satisfy the court with an evidence in this regard.

Earlier, the prosecutor-general submitted that the purpose of re-examining the witness was not to prolong the case but it was essential because the documents in view of which he had been summoned pertained to transfer of a large number of shares of two sugar mills in Sindh.

He cited Supreme Court judgments to establish that witnesses could be re-examined and documents re-submitted to fill the lacunae for judicious dispensation of a case.

He claimed that the NAB was not responsible for the delay and the accused had sought 48 adjournments during the last three years. Mr Pirzada stated that the prosecution had submitted certain documents and requested the re-summoning of the witness to fill gaps in the case despite the fact that the witness had already been cross-examined.

He said the reference had not been proved in six years. He said that during the proceedings the prosecution filed a 2,700-page third reference on Sept 12, 2001, with an additional list of 37 witnesses, against which a case was pending in the Supreme Court.