Hearing on power plant case stalled till Apr 19

The High Court (HC) yesterday adjourned the hearing on its earlier ruling until April 19 asking for explanation of the proceedings of the barge-mounted power plant corruption case against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and others.
The HC bench of Justice Sheikh Rezowan Ali and Justice Md Rais Uddin also dropped from hearing the petition filed by Sheikh Hasina for quashing the proceedings of the Niko graft case against her.
The HC bench passed the orders upon a prayer moved by Attorney General (AG) Mahbubey Alam praying for making both of the matters out of the cause list of that bench for a time being.
The attorney general told the court that his (AG) office was not prepared enough to proceed with these two cases at this moment as he has taken over the charge of the office recently.
It is necessary to take the two cases out of the list for the time being and government will later take these cases for the hearing, he said.
Hasina's counsel Advocate AFM Mesbahuddin told The Daily Star that the HC fixed April 19 for hearing the rule regarding the proceedings of the barge-mounted power plant case, as the matter was earlier heard partly by this court.
Hearing of the HC rules on the proceedings of the two corruption cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and others were due to be held yesterday.
On January 7, the HC extended the time of its earlier orders for not harassing or arresting Sheikh Hasina in the cases and fixed February 15 for the hearing.
Upon separate quashment petitions, the HC on July 7 last year stayed all proceedings of the corruption cases and issued the rules asking the government and the ACC to explain why the cases should not be quashed.