Khaleda's trial gets go-ahead

The Supreme Court yesterday scrapped BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's petition against a High Court verdict that had upheld the charge framing against her by a lower court in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.

A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain passed the order hearing the leave-to-appeal petition filed on July 7.

The four other judges are Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, Justice Md Wahhab Miah, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik.

The bench held a long discussion before passing the order around 9:50am yesterday, said court sources.

Hours after the SC order, Khaleda submitted two more petitions with the HC expressing no confidence in Special Judges Court-3 of Dhaka judge Basudev Roy, who had framed the charges against her and eight others in Zia Charitable Trust and Zia Orphanage Trust graft cases.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said such no confidence petitions by the BNP chief aims at dilly dallying the trial proceedings against her.

“I will take step for an early hearing and disposal of the petitions,” he told The Daily Star.

In her yesterday's pleas, Khaleda said she lost confidence in Judge Basudev Roy and prayed to the HC for directives upon the government to transfer the cases from his court to an another one.

The BNP chairperson also prayed to the HC to stay the trial proceedings of the corruption cases, her lawyer Barrister AKM Ehsanur Rahman said.

Ehsanur also said they would seek some time from Basudev Roy's court today as their no confidence petitions were still pending with the HC.

After the SC passed the order yesterday, Anti-Corruption Commission's lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan said there was no more legal bar to recording witness depositions by the trial court in both the two graft cases.

On November 24, the Supreme Court cleared the way for continuing the trial proceedings against Khaleda in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case, dismissing her two appeals.

The BNP chief had filed the pleas with the Appellate Division, challenging two HC decisions -- one to accept charges against the seven accused, including Khaleda and her elder son Tarique Rahman, and the other to allow charge framing against them in the case.

The ACC in 2009 filed the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case for embezzlement of over Tk 2.1 crore by forming a “fake” trust which existed only on paper.

The anti-graft watchdog filed Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in 2011 accusing four people, including Khaleda, of abusing power in setting up the charitable trust.

On March 19 this year, Judge Bashudev Roy had passed the indictment order on Khaleda.

The HC upheld the order rejecting her two petitions against it later on April 23.