Counsel for Alison-Madueke, her ministry and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Etigwe Uwa (SAN), had urged Justice Ahmed Mohammed to restrain the House Committee on Public Accounts from carrying on with the probe pending the hearing of their substantive suit.
They filed the suit to stop the probe which the committee had now scheduled to commence on June 17.
Alison-Madueke, Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC are the plaintiffs in the suit, while the National Assembly and the House of Representatives are the first and second defendants respectively.
Uwa had on Monday opposed an oral application for an adjournment by the counsel for the House of Representatives, Mr. A.B Mahmud (SAN), insisting that the matter was for the defendants to show cause why they should not be restrained from going on with the probe.
But Mahmud said he was just briefed about the matter and that he was not aware of what transpired in the previous proceedings when the order to show cause was made.
He said he had only prepared for the substantive suit, which the court had ordered the plaintiffs to serve on his client after the April 29. proceedings.
The court had ordered the processes to be served on the House of Representatives after it refused to grant a restraining order against the defendants which the plaintiffs had applied for through a motion ex parte.
In asking for an interim restraining order on Monday, Uwa argued that "court should restrain the defendants from going ahead with the probe having been served with the processes of the pending suit."
He said it was the only way the court could restore its dignity.
"We may come back to this court next time and discover that what we are asking the court to restrain has occurred," Uwa added.
But Mahmud said granting such a restraining order would amount to the judiciary interfering with the statutory duty of the National Assembly.
"The Supreme Court has cautioned that in cases like this, courts should be reluctant to grant order that could restrain a statutory body from carrying out its statutory duty," Mahmud said.
On his part, counsel for the National Assembly, Yakubu Maikyau (SAN),informed the court that he had two pending applications before the court.
One of the applications was to regularise his briefs, while the other is seeking the name of the National Assembly to be struck out as a defendant because the Senate was not participating in the proposed probe.
After a lengthy argument between the lawyers, the court adjourned the matter till June 19.
"In the interim parties shall respond to all pending applications served on them," the judge ruled.
Following an apology tendered by Mahmud on behalf of his client, Justice Mohammed ordered the House of Representatives to immediately organise a press conference to correct its statement on April 29 that the court had restrained its committee from further carrying
out the proposed probe.
"This must be done so that we can clarify the issue once and for all and put it behind us," the judge said.
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