ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court (SC )Chief Justice (CJ) Asif Saeed Khosa of has approved early hearing of Nawaz Sharif petition seeking bail on health grounds in Al-Azizya reference verdict.
A full court bench of the apex court headed by CJ Asif Saeed Khosa and comprised of Justice Sajad Ali Shah and Justice Yahya Afridi will hear the petition.
Former premier Nawaz Sharif counsel Khawaja Harris had filed the petition to hear it early. The SC full court bench would hear the petition next week on March 19.
Earlier, the SC on March 5 had rejected a request moved on behalf of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for early hearing of his appeal against the Feb 25 Islamabad High Court (IHC) order of turning down his plea seeking bail on medical grounds in the Al-Azizia corruption case.
Khawaja Haris Ahmed had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court on behalf of the former premier on March 2 asking the apex court to grant him bail after suspending the execution of the Dec 24, 2018 sentence of seven-year imprisonment awarded to him by the Accountability Court No II.
At the time when the appeal was filed, a separate request was also moved before the court with a plea that the petition be heard by a bench of the apex court preferably on Wednesday (March 6).
But the Supreme Court registrar office returned the application for early hearing on the grounds that no special treatment could be accorded and the routine procedure would be followed to take up the matter.
