Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned until January 23 a case alleging corruption by the prime minister, after the head of an anti-graft watchdog said he lacked evidence to arrest him.

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned until January 23 a case alleging corruption by the prime minister, after the head of an anti-graft watchdog said he lacked evidence to arrest him.

The country’s top anti-corruption official refused to comply with court orders to arrest Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, raising the prospect of a fresh confrontation between the senior judiciary and the country’s embattled leadership.

On Tuesday the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, ordered the arrest of Ashraf and 15 other current and former officials as part of a year-old corruption prosecution relating to Ashraf’s tenure as minister for water and power between 2008 and 2011.

The order coincided with a large protest march in Islamabad, led by a charismatic cleric, and government officials accused the judge of taking advantage of the chaotic situation to press his long-standing rivalry with the government.

But on Thursday Fasih Bokhari, the head of the National Accountability Bureau, the government’s main anti-graft body, said that the investigation into Ashraf’s case had been “inaccurate” and “hurried,” and told the court that he needed more time to complete his work.

Chief Justice Chaudhry responded with anger and accused Bokhari and his prosecutors of behaving like defense counsel for the government.

According to senior government officials, the timing of the arrest order is striking. General elections are expected to be announced in the comings weeks, perhaps earlier, and set for sometime in early May.

Meanwhile, the preacher who has camped outside the Parliament in Islamabad, Mohammad Tahir-ul Qadri, has drawn thousands of his followers, and gave President Asif Ali Zardari, who is the co-chairman of the ruling party, until the afternoon to hold a dialogue with him. But he stopped short of announcing his next course of action if his demands were not met.

“Enough is enough,” Qadri said as thousands of his followers stood under a pouring rain.

The interior minister, Rehman Malik, suggested Wednesday evening that the security forces could try to remove the protesters on Thursday. But the order was publicly countermanded shortly afterward by Zardari, who is staying at his Karachi residence, highlighting the political sensitivity of the situation.

Qadri, 61, who has vowed to remain peaceful despite his aggressive and increasingly threatening rhetoric, is calling for a complete overhaul of the electoral system.