Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) former federal minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain on Wednesday filed an application requesting the Supreme Court to take up his case for hearing on an urgent basis.

He requested the court to take up the case by August 18 because he wanted to go abroad for heart surgery.

Dr Hussain is a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari. He had filed a petition in the Supreme Court on June 19, requesting for removal of his name from the Exit Control List (ECL), so that he may travel abroad for medical treatment.

On Wednesday, Dr Hussain filed a Civil Miscellaneous Application (CMA) to his pending petition through his senior counsel Sardar Latif Khosa. In the application, he submitted that he wanted to go to the United Kingdom for heart surgery and on account of the nature of disease his plea needed to be heard on an urgent basis.

He submitted that doctors abroad had given him an appointment for August 24.

He recalled that earlier when the case was taken up for hearing on July 27, it was adjourned with the order that it should be fixed after a week, however, the hearing was still not resumed.

In March, the Sindh High Court had granted bail to the PPP leader in two corruption references filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

On the same day, an anti-terrorism court had issued his release order in a case relating to the alleged treatment of terrorists at Ziauddin Hospital, where he serves as the deputy managing director.

NAB had been pursuing Dr Hussain on charges of corruption. He was accused of depriving the state exchequer of Rs462.5bn between 2010 and 2013 as the former petroleum minister. Dr Hussain was released from prison after 19 months in detention on March 31.

A three-member bench of the Apex court headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan is hearing the petitions filed by Dr Hussain. On July 14, the bench had issued notices to the respondents. NAB had filed reference against Dr Asim Hussain along with top officials of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) over misuse of authority in illegally awarding contracts of five gas fields to the privately-managed Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL).

Published in Daily Times, August 17^th 2017.