Property in Gulshan: Salam Murshedy has to hand it over to govt

The High Court yesterday directed Awami League lawmaker Abdus Salam Murshedy to hand over a property in his possession at Dhaka's Gulshan to the government.

The court declared it an abandoned property.

Murshedy has been ordered to hand over the property to the housing and public works secretary within three months of receiving the HC verdict.

The HC also directed the secretary to submit a compliance report to it through its registrar office in 15 days after receiving the property.

The court said the property was not dropped from the government's list of abandoned properties through the court of settlement.

The bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Kazi Ebadot Hossain delivered the verdict after hearing of a writ petition seeking its directives to recover the property allegedly occupied by the MP illegally.

The full text of the HC judgement is yet to be released.

After the HC passed the verdict, writ petitioner's lawyer Aneek R Haque told reporters that the court asked the Anti-Corruption Commission to conduct a proper investigation into the case filed in this connection in an impartial manner.

The people have won through this verdict, the lawyer said.

Meanwhile, Murshedy's lawyer Mohammad Sayed Ahmed Raza termed the HC verdict a rare one.

He said the HC usually does not give such orders without any judgment from a civil court in a case regarding an abandoned property or any property that is owned by the government.

The HC ordered directly transferring the property in a public interest litigation, which is a rare ruling.

"Once the full text of this judgment is released, we will carefully go through it and then we will take further steps," he added.

Supreme Court lawyer Syed Sayedul Haque Suman, now an independent lawmaker, submitted the writ petition as a public interest litigation to the HC on October 31, 2022 regarding the house-29 of CEN (D)-27 located on the Road-104 of Gulshan-2, which is in the possession of Murshedy.

In the petition, Suman said Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) had given the ownership of the luxurious building of the Public Works Department to Murshedy, lawmaker from Khulna-4, by forging documents.

During the hearing on the petition, ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told the HC that the commission in a probe found that fraudulence, forgery, and abuse of power occurred during the allocation of the Gulshan house and plot to Murshedy.

Following the enquiry, the graft watchdog filed a criminal case against 11 people under the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of the Anti-Corruption Act of 1947, he added.