Pak court rejects Finance Minister Dar's plea seeking exemption from proceedings

In a setback to Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is embroiled in corruption case, an accountability court on Thursday rejected a fresh application seeking his exemption from appearing in the court proceedings.

The court also upheld Dar's bailable arrest warrants in the graft case, filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for owning assets beyond his means.

When the proceedings began, junior counsel Ayesha Hamid submitted the plea application along with a medical report that said Dar "cannot stand for more than four minutes", The Dawn reported.

In an October 30 hearing, the court had issued bailable arrest warrants for the minister after rejecting another application seeking Dar's exemption from appearance in today's hearing.

Due to the minister's failure to appear before the court, the proceedings could not continue then.

Acting upon petitions filed by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's Imran Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami's Sirajul Haq and Awami Muslim League's Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the Supreme Court bench ordered NAB to file three cases against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and one against Dar, on July 28.

NAB alleged that the assets owned by Dar were disproportionate to his known sources of income for which he could not reasonably account for.