Shafik Rehman faces court May 22

The High Court yesterday summoned journalist Shafik Rehman to appear before it on May 22 for receiving a plot on the proposed 60-feet-wide road under Begunbari-Hatirjheel project in the capital “illegally and improperly.”
During hearing on a suo moto rule, the court asked former BNP state ministers--Ziaul Haque Zia and Kamrul Islam--to submit separate reports before it by May 22 mentioning their and their family members' total number of plots in Dhaka and the way of getting the plots.
The HC also asked deputy secretary (development) of the Public Works Department (PWD) to submit a list of plot holders at the project to it by May 22.
Ziaul Haque and his son Joy and Kamrul Islam will have to appear in the court on the day.
Ziaul, Joy, and Kamrul and his wife Nazma Islam yesterday appeared before the HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim, as per its May 9 summons over the same allegation.
The bench requested Buet professors--Sarwar Jahan, Aminur Rahman and Zubayer Rahman, and Abul Hasnat to give their opinion before it on May 22.
PWD deputy secretary (development) and Rajuk director for Begunbari-Hatirjheel project have to explain their role over allocating the plots before the bench on that day.
The court yesterday called Shafik Rehman to appear in it on the day after Rajuk's lawyer AKM Saifuddin Ahmed informed that the senior journalist also got a plot "illegally and improperly" in 2004, Deputy Attorney General ABM Altaf Hossain told The Daily Star.
Following a report published on the daily Samakal on March 24, 2010, the HC bench on May 9 issued a rule upon the authorities concerned to explain why the allocation of the plots should not be cancelled.
The report said the BNP-led four-party alliance government allocated the plots to the state ministers in 2006 by violating a Rajuk plan of 1994.
A 10-katha plot was given to Nazma, director of Famous Fashions Limited, and two plots on one and a quarter bighas of land were given to Joy at a very minimal cost, said the newspaper report.
Joy and Nazma got the land at Tk 1.25 lakh per katha though then the market price was around Tk 1 crore, it added.
Zia and Kamrul yesterday told the court that Joy and Nazma had purchased the plots through due process.
Advocate TH Khan and Advocate Yusuf Hossain Humayun appeared for Kamrul and his wife, and Ziaul and his son.