KARACHI: An accountability court adjourned hearing of two corruption references against former petroleum minister and Pakistan People’s Party’s leader Dr Asim Hussain and others till August 22nd The court heard two reference of Rs 420billion rupees corruption and other of Rs17bn corruption filed by National Accountability Bureau against Dr Asim and other accused. During the course of hearing, the accused counsel once against raised objections on NAB documents. The counsels said that the proceeding was going on smoothly when NAB has started filing additional documents to obstruct it. The lawyers took the plea that NAB had recovered Rs12 billion in the Rs17 billions corruption reference so there was no need to hear the case. They pleaded the court to reject the JJVL reference. The court while fixing August 22nd as next date for hearing adjourned the hearing of both the cases. Dr Asim Hussain, Athar Hussain, Muhammad Safdar, Khalid Rehman, Zohair Siddiqui, Shaoib Warsi, Basharat Mirza, Malik Usman and others are being tried in the JJVL reference pertaining to charges of corruption of around Rs17b. In another reference, Dr Asim and others are alleged to have committed corruption of more than Rs462b. The PPP leader and others are also alleged to have allowed to process gas from five fields in lower Sindh without conducting an open auction or signing agreements and without following other mandatory procedures. Published in Daily Times, August 20th 2017.