Judge Mohammad Abul Bashar of the First Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court passed the order after the defence lawyers filed the time petition saying that their client, Ershad, could not appear before the court yesterday due to illness.

On June 12, Judge Abul Bashar said that he joined as a judge recently and he would hear arguments of the case again to be acquainted with the case.

The verdict of the case had been deferred six times before for different reasons.

The gold smuggling case against Ershad was filed with Cantonment Police Station on July 17, 1990 after a team of customs officials held four people, including two foreign nationals, at Zia International Airport the same day while they were trying to smuggle around 3.6 kg of gold worth around Tk 2.5 crore into Bangladesh.

During the investigation, the IO found evidence of Ershad's involvement in the smuggling and his name was included in the charge sheet on August 31, 1991.