KARACHI-Accountability Court, Karachi on Friday exonerated former Chairman Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), Usman Farooqui, from corruption charges. Earlier, AC judge Muhammad Riaz Rajput had reserved the judgment after hearing the comments from the prosecution and the defence counsel about the case. The former head of PSM Usman Farooqui was accused of corruption in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) reference, in which he had allegedly done losses of millions of rupees to the national exchequer during purchase of a ferrous manganese contract in Dec 1995. Usman Farooqui moved an application, seeking acquittal of the corruption charges saying that a baseless case had been registered against him. The petitioners counsel had contended that all other co-defendants in the case had been acquitted by the Accountability Court due to lack of evidence. Moreover, the petitioner was in jail at the time when the case was registered against him but he was not produced before the trial court to defend charges against him. He further argued that NAB had stated in its reference that the purchases and other dealings which made Pakistan Steel suffer losses, were actually approved by the Ministry concerned. Therefore, his client was not linked to such dealings and purchasing. The court had found him innocent in the matter.