25-year-old Case: Ershad cleared of graft by HC
The High Court yesterday acquitted Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad in a corruption case filed 25 years ago.
The bench of Justice Md Ruhul Quddus and Justice Bhishmadev Chakrabortty delivered the verdict after hearing three separate appeals.
A Dhaka court had sentenced Ershad to three years' imprisonment in the corruption case involving misappropriation of Tk 1.91 crore. Later, three separate appeals were filed with the HC against the lower court verdict.
Yesterday, Ershad, also special envoy to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was acquitted as two kinds of charges were brought in the same case and he was not a public servant during the initiation of the case in 1992, Anti-Corruption Commission lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star.
"I have already informed the Anti-Corruption Commission about the High Court verdict. The commission will now decide whether it will move an appeal before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court verdict. But I think an appeal should be moved,” he added.
Ershad's lawyer Sheikh Sirajul Islam told reporters that it was proved from the HC judgment that the lower court had not delivered the verdict against his client in accordance with law.
Of the three appeal petitions with the HC, one was filed by Ershad seeking acquittal in the case as a lower court had sentenced him to three years' imprisonment in 1992. The other two appeals were filed by the government for making the punishment stricter.
On March 30 this year, the HC bench allowed the ACC to become a party in the case as a co-appellant.
Chief Justice SK Sinha on March 27 assigned the HC bench to hear the three appeals.
In 1992, the then Bureau of Anti-Corruption (Bac), which became defunct after the formation of the ACC in 2004, filed the case against former military ruler Ershad with Cantonment Police Station on charge of misappropriating Tk 1.91 crore by misusing power on different occasions when he was the president from December 11, 1983, to December 6, 1990.
Ousted from power in December 1990, Ershad faced 21 cases, mostly for alleged corruption. However, he has already been acquitted in most of the cases.
After yesterday's acquittal, the former military dictator is now facing two more cases --one for Uttara plot allotment scam and another for murder of Maj Gen Abul Manzoor. Both the cases are now under trial.
Ershad joined the Awami League-led grand alliance before the 2008 national elections.
But all of a sudden on Sunday, he formed United National Alliance, comprised of 58 political parties which are mostly name only, and announced to contest the next general election under the new coalition.
On April 19, a Dhaka court acquitted the former military dictator and two others in a 24-year-old defence purchase scam case as it found the prosecution could not prove the charges brought against the accused.