Court Correspondent :
Chairman of Agora Super Shop Niaz Rahim secured bail yesterday hours after he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in two cases filed for selling adulterated ghee in 2008.
Mehedi Pavel Sweet, Special Magistrate of Pure Food Court of Dhaka granted bail to Niaz Rahim in both cases on condition that he will appeal against the conviction and sentence within 30 days.
Niaz, who is one of the directors of business group Rahimafrooz, was granted bail after he filed two petitions seeking bail in the cases. Later, he was released from the custody.
Earlier in the day, another special magistrate of the court handed down the sentence to Niaz Rahim and ordered to send him to the prison. The court also fined him Tk 50,000 in each case, in default of which he will serve two months’ more in the prison.
Now Niaz Rahim can appeal to the Metropolitan Sessions judge’s Court against the conviction and sentence handed by the Pure Food Court under the section 41C of the Pure Food Ordinance, 1959. The section says, “An appeal against the judgement of a Pure Food Court shall lie to the Sessions Judge or to the Metropolitan Sessions Judge, within 30 (Thirty) days as the case may be.”
According to the case statement, Health Inspector Fakhruddin Mobarok of Dhaka City Corporation seized adulterated ghee from Agora Super Shop of Maghbazar area in the capital on August 18, 2008 and lodged two separate cases against him with the court.
After taking into cognizance of the charges in the cases, the court framed charges against Agora Chairman on November 10 in 2008.
During the trial proceedings, the court recorded statements of four prosecution witnesses and five defence witnesses. The sample of adulterated ghee was seized from Agora’s Moghbazar outlet.
