The Bangladesh Supreme Court (SC) yesterday upheld a High Court order that had earlier rejected a petition filed by BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia seeking a directive on the trial court to annul the testimony of the plaintiff in Zia Orphanage Trust fund misappropriation case against her.
A five-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha passed the order.
Khaleda on September 16, 2015, filed the appeal with the SC against the HC order.
After the SC order, lawyer of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Khurshid Alam Khan said there is no more legal bar to continue the trial proceedings of Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case against the BNP chairperson.
On June 29, 2015, the HC rejected the petition filed by Khaleda for scrapping the testimony of investigation officer (IO) and recording IO’s his fresh statement in her presence at the court.
The bench comprising Justice Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice J B M Hassan passed the order, saying there was nothing illegal in recording the statement of the IO in the graft case.
Khaleda can cross-examine the IO and therefore, she can find out whether he has given wrong statement.
On June 15 last year, the BNP chief filed the criminal revision petition with the HC against the rejection of her petition by the lower court.
Earlier on May 25, a Dhaka court rejected the defence lawyer’s petition for scrapping the deposition given by the plaintiff of the case on six dates in absence of the
accused.
On July 3, 2008, the ACC filed the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case with Ramna police station accusing Khaleda, her eldest son Tarique Rahman, now living in the UK after securing bail, and four others for misappropriating over 21mn taka which came as grants from a foreign bank for orphans.
On August 5, 2010, the IO submitted a charge-sheet to the court in the case against six people, including Khaleda.