Staff Reporter :
Documents of the Zia Orphanage Trust case reached the High Court (HC) on Sunday afternoon, 20 days after the full verdict of the case, court sources said.
The court will pass order on the bail petition of BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, who is a convict of the case, at 2:00pm on Monday after scrutiny the documents in this case.
On March 8, the HC Bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shahidul Karim fixed Sunday morning to pass order on the bail petition of Khaleda Zia. But the Bench had to reschedule at 2:00pm on Monday as the case documents did not reach the HC till then.
Assistant Sub-Inspector Manju Miah of Kotwali Police Station reached the High Court at 12.54 pm yesterday with the case documents in a big tank. Section officer of the High Court Division Farukh Hossain received the documents. Later, the documents were transferred to the Criminal Appeal Section.
Judge of the Special Court-5 of Dhaka, Dr Md Akhtaruzzaman, sentenced former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to five years imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission. The special court also sentenced Khaleda Zia’s eldest son and BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, and four others to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Tk 2.10 crore each.
Khaleda Zia filed an appeal petition on February 20 challenging the trial court verdict.
On February 22, 2018, the HC accepted the appeal petition for hearing and stayed the lower court fine of Tk 2.10 crore on Khaleda Zia and asked the lower court to forward the case records to the High Court within 15 days.
After holding hearing on the bail petition the HC on February 25 said that it will deliver an order on her bail prayer after getting the case records from the lower court that sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage corruption case. Khaleda Zia’s lawyers on March 8 brought the case to the attention of the HC. Then the HC fixed Sunday for passing an order.
On Sunday morning, Khaleda Zia’s lawyer Zainul Abedin said to the court, “Case records are not necessary to grant bail in this case. The court had the tradition to pass bail order without case records. This court also has the jurisdiction to pass such kind of order.”
Then the court said, “It is right that we have the tradition. But we called the records. We passed the order on February 22. The time has come to end today (Sunday) as per the order. We want to see if they (trial court) carry the order. We are fixing Sunday for passing order.”
Attorney Genral Mahbubey Alam and Deputy Attorney General Farhad Ahammed appeared in the court on behalf of the state and Advocate Khushed Alam Khan stood for the ACC.
Advocate A J Mohammad Ali, Advocate Khandker Mahbub Hossain, Barrister A M Mahbub Uddin Khokan, Barrister Moudud Ahmed, Advocate Nitay Roy Chowdhury, Barrister Kayser Kamal, Advocate Sagir Hossain and Barrister A K M Ehsanur Rahman were also present in the court for Khaleda Zia along with Advocate Zainul Abedin.
BNP’s senior leaders Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Abdul Moin Khan, Mirza Abbas, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Zainal Abdeen Faruq and Abdul Awal Mintoo were also present in the court during the hearing.
The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case with Ramna Police Station in July 2008, accusing Khaleda Zia and the five convicts of misappropriating over Tk 2.10 crore that had come from a foreign bank as grants for orphans.
