Court adjourns supplementary reference hearing against Ishaq Dar till March 5

ISLAMABAD: The accountability court hearing the corruption case against former finance minister Senator Ishaq Dar conducted on Wednesday proceedings of the supplementary reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). 

As the hearing went under way, the judge was informed that only one of three new accused is present in court. 

Judge Mohammad Bashir then adjourned proceedings for later today until the other accused appear in court. 

Resuming the hearing later, the court adjourned the proceedings until March 5 and ordered that all the accused, present in court, be provided copies of the interim and supplementary references. 

The accused include National Bank of Pakistan President Saeed Ahmed, Naeem Mehmood and Mansoor Rizvi.

On Monday, the court had accepted NAB's supplementary reference, which includes 24 additional witnesses and three new accused persons. 

Dar, a close aide of Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif, is accused of possessing assets disproportionate to his declared sources of income. 

An interim reference was filed against him by NAB in September last year in light of the Supreme Court's July 28, 2017 verdict in the Panama Papers case.

The supplementary reference is based on seven volumes and includes the account details of the accused persons, with transactions amounting to $4.06 million, according to NAB's Special Prosecutor Imran Shafiq.