KARACHI - Accountability Court on Thursday reserved the judgment on National Accountably Bureau (NAB) corruption reference against Sindh Local Government (LG) Minister Agha Siraj Durrani, till March 12. The AC Judge, Mohammad Riaz Rajpot, reserved the verdict after hearing the final agreements from both the sides. The NAB prosecutor Aslma Butt submitted that the main witness Imam Soomro, former Director Technical of Pak-Swiss Institute, who was one of the co-accused in the reference, was not able to record his statement due to disease. The accused may have benefit of doubt. Khawaja Naveed while counselling on the behalf of the appellant/accused argued that the false and baseless corruption case was launched against his client in the past regime to victimise him. He argued that not single evidence was submitted before the trial court, which could prove his clients involvement in the corruption case. Earlier, on the direction of AC judge, the magistrate went to the residence of Imam Soomro in the last month to record his statement, as his son Taqriq Soomro had submitted a request that his father was not able come to the court due to fatal and sensitive disease. The NAB had filed a reference against the minister for alleged irregularities in the last tenure when he was Education Minister. He was charged of embezzlement of funds worth Rs 5.5 million during the purchase of furniture for Pak-Swiss Technical Institute in the previous PPP-led regime causing massive losses to the national exchequer 1995. SHC adjourns hearing of appeal in Rehman Dakait case Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday adjourned the hearing of an appeal by State through Advocate General Sindh questioning appointment of a police officer to investigate FIR into alleged murder of Rehman Dakait till February 19. Assistant Advocate General Sindh, Adnan Karim appeared before the bench, wherein he argued that the court was not entitled to assign inquiry officer on the wish of any unconcerned person. He further contended that being a provincial police chief IG Sindh was authorised to assign police officials in this regard. He prayed to set aside the previous SHC decision regarding appointing the inquiry officer. Mujeeb Perzada Advocate while counselling on the part of the petitioner, objected the arguments of the governments counsel, saying that the court has right to do so. He pointed out some previous judgments in which the inquiry officers had been assigned by the courts on the request of the applicants/victims. He also requested the court to dismiss the review application, arguing that according to article 199 such review appeal could not be submitted in the High Court against its own verdict. He contended that the judgment came by the division bench of SHC, thus, the review appeal should have been moved to the apex court, instead of the high court.