Orphanage Case: Order on Khaleda's bail petition Sunday
The High Court yesterday fixed Sunday for passing necessary orders regarding the bail petition of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case over which she was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.
The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shahidul Karim set the date after Khaleda's lawyer Zainul Abedin prayed to it to pass an order on the petition.
Meanwhile, Mokarram Hossain, bench assistant of the Special Judge's Court-5 of Dhaka that declared the verdict in the graft case, yesterday told The Daily Star that they would send the records of the case to the HC on Sunday.
Advocate Zainul told the HC that the bench of Justice Enayetur and Justice Shahidul on February 22 ordered the trial court to send the case records to it within 15 days, which expired on Wednesday.
When the court asked Zainul whether the case records had reached the HC office from the lower court concerned, he replied that he did not know it.
The court then fixed Sunday for passing necessary orders on Khaleda's bail petition.
The HC has jurisdiction to pass an order on the bail petition even if the case records are not received by it, Zainul told this newspaper.
On February 25, the HC bench heard the bail petition of Khaleda and said that it would pass an order on it after receiving the case records from the lower court.
On February 8, Special Judge's Court-5 of Dhaka sentenced Khaleda to five years' rigorous imprisonment after it had found her and five others guilty in the graft case.
The court also awarded jail sentences to Tarique Rahman, now the acting chairman of BNP, and four others for 10 years and fined them Tk 2.10 crore, saying that all the six convicts have to pay the fine in equal amounts.
On February 22, the HC stayed the lower court order that fined Khaleda.
The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the graft case with Ramna Police Station in July 2008, accusing the six of misappropriating over Tk 2.1 crore that came from a foreign bank as grants for orphans.