HC illegally entertained it: SC

The Supreme Court has declared that a High Court bench had illegally entertained a petition of Zubaida Rahman, wife of BNP's acting chairman Tarique Rahman, as she filed the plea while being a fugitive.

In the full text of a verdict, the SC reasoned that Zubaida had filed the petition without surrendering to the trial court that was dealing with a corruption case.

"… the rule issuing bench of the High Court Division overstepped in its jurisdiction in not considering that the petitioner filed the application under section 561A of the Code of Criminal Procedure without surrendering to the jurisdiction of the appropriate court and thus illegally entertained the application under section 561A and stayed further proceedings of the case," a four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC led by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique observed in the 16-page verdict released yesterday.

On April 13 this year, the bench of the apex court upheld a High Court verdict that in 2017 had cleared the way for the lower court to resume the trial of the corruption case against Zubaida.

On September 26, 2008, the ACC filed the case with Kafrul Police Station against Tarique and Zubaida, who are in London, and her mother Iqbal Mand Banu for amassing assets illegally and concealing information in their wealth statement.

Following the petition filed by Zubaida, the HC on April 8, 2009, stayed the proceedings of the case against her and issued a rule asking the ACC to explain why the proceedings against her should not be scrapped.

After holding a hearing on the rule, the HC on April 12, 2017, rejected the petition, lifted the stay order and asked Zubaida to surrender before the court concerned in eight weeks.

In the full text of the verdict, the Appellate Division scrapped the stay order delivered by the HC in 2009.

ACC's lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star that the apex court's observation indicates that the HC bench had violated the constitution.

The SC observed, "The judiciary should not create a precedent which cannot be applicable to all… .

In the premises above, we are of the view that the petitioner was a fugitive in the eye of law when she filed the application … ."

Barrister Kayser Kamal, a lawyer for Zubaida, could not say anything about the apex court's full verdict and its observations.