The High Court in Penang has fixed 34 days in 2017 for the graft trial of Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng involving the purchase of his bungalow on Jalan Pinhorn.

Judge Hadariah Syed Ismail said the prosecution has 60 witnesses to be questioned.

The dates fixed are March 27 to 31, April 10 to 14, April 24 to 28, May 15 to 19, May 29 to June 2, June 13 to 16 and July 17 to 21.

Justice Hadariah told both the prosecution and defence to agree on the issues, facts and documents to be tried by Jan 6 next year.

"I hope these matters can be resolved by Jan 6. I have been hearing problems regarding the documents for two months, I hope these will be settled by then," she said.

Lead prosecutor Masri Mohd Daud concurred with the judge, saying he would sort out the matter of the documents with the defence team led by Gobind Singh Deo.

Masri confirmed that there were 13,000 pages and 35 volumes of documents to be sieved through before the trial begins in March.

Gobind then requested for his client's presence to be dispensed with and the judge agreed.

"We will not change the dates fixed for trial but we can add more days if necessary," Justice Hadariah said.

"So if you want the trial to commence fast, please settle the documents by Jan 6," she added.

The judge fixed Jan 6 for third mention to resolve all issues pertaining to the documents.

When met outside the courtroom, Gobind said the judge gave both sides time to resolve some issues with the documents.

"The judge gave us one month so we can agree to the issues that will be raised during the trial," he told reporters.

"These problems are to be expected, and to be fair to the prosecution, they have a lot of pages to go through," he added.

Problems not major issues

Asked what were the problems with the documents, Gobind said they were not major issues.

"These are minor issues, like photocopied pages missing. We can resolve it by Jan 6," he added.

In June, Lim was charged with corruption and abuse of power under Section 23 of the MACC Act and Section 165 of the Penal Code.

Lim is accused of abusing his position to approve the rezoning of a land from agriculture use to housing in Balik Pulau in July 2014, when he chaired the State Planning Committee.

The plot belongs to Magnificent Emblem Sdn Bhd, in which businesswoman Phang Li Koon has a 30 percent stake.

Phang, also an associate of Lim's wife Betty Chew, sold the bungalow to the couple in 2015 for RM2.8 million, which is allegedly below market its value.

Lim denied that Phang had benefitted from the re-zoning as it was rejected by the Penang Island City Council last December.

On the purchase of the bungalow, Lim insisted that it was bought on a willing buyer-willing seller basis.

Phang has also been charged with corruption and her case is being heard by the High Court in Penang, together with Lim.

She was represented by counsel Hisham Teh today.

Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general, has denied any wrongdoing, claiming the charges were trumped up and were meant to end his political career.