24-yr-old plea of Ershad on Sunday's hearing list

The 24-year-old appeal of former president HM Ershad against a lower court verdict that jailed him for three years in a corruption case has come up in the hearing list of the High Court.

The appeal has been enlisted as item No 4 on Sunday's list of the HC bench of Justice Bhabani Prasad Singha.

The bench might fix a date for appeal hearing, Anti-Corruption Commission lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star yesterday, who on August 22 prayed for hearing the appeal for its disposal.

Khurshid said the then Bureau of Anti-Corruption (Bac), which became defunct after the formation of the ACC in 2004, had filed the case against Ershad for misappropriating Tk 1.91 crore when he was the president from 1983 to 1990.

A Dhaka court in 1992 convicted Ershad, and sentenced him to prison and ordered the authorities concerned to confiscate the money and his Toyota Land Cruiser car.

The same year, Ershad filed an appeal, challenging the verdict, which the HC stayed.

The ACC lawyer said Ershad had got bail in the case. He, however, could not say how long Ershad had served in jail. 

Khurshid also said they had tried to get Ershad's appeal moved before the HC, but there was no single-judge HC bench with jurisdiction to hear such an appeal relating to corruption.