A two-member High Court division bench in Bangladesh yesterday delivered a split order on former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia’s writ petitions challenging the legality of the appointment of a special judge who indicted her in two separate corruption cases.
Justice Farah Mahbub stayed the former PM’s trial in the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust corruption cases, while Justice Kazi Ejarul Haque Akondo rejected her petitions.
Mahbub stayed the proceedings of the cases for three months and issued a ruling upon the government to explain why the appointment of Bashudeb Roy as a judge to Special Judge’s Court-3 of Dhaka should not be declared illegal.
On the other hand, Justice Akond summarily rejected the petitions.
Mahbub later said that they would send Zia’s petitions along with the verdicts to Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain for a decision.
In her writ petitions, Zia sought a ruling upon the authority concerned asking why the appointment of the judge should not be declared illegal as there was no official gazette notification published following his appointment.
Zia, also the chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was indicted in both cases, while Tarique Rahman, senior vice chairman of her party, in the orphanage case.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case in July 2008, saying that Zia and five others including her elder son Tarique Rahman had embezzled over 20mn taka ($253,164) from an orphanage trust during her 2001-2006 term as prime minister.
In 2011, the anti-graft body sued the BNP chief and three others for pocketing 31.5mn taka ($397,435) of the Zia Charitable Trust in the name of her late husband, former President Ziaur Rahman.
Zia often said political vendettas are to blame for the cases against her and her sons during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s incumbent government.