Rooppur power plant corruption: HC questions bail of 7 former engineers
The High Court today questioned the lower court orders that granted bail to seven former engineers of housing and public works department in two cases filed over the much-talked-about corruption in purchasing furniture and household items for officials of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Pabna.
Issuing seven separate rules, the court asked the accused to explain in two weeks why the lower court orders that granted bail to them should not be scrapped.
The HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice SM Mozibur Rahman came up with the rules after hearing seven petitions filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) challenging the bail orders passed by a special judge's court in Pabna.
ACC's lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star that the special judge's court granted bail on different days in June and did not consider the gravity of the offences committed by the accused and therefore the bail orders were wrong. The HC issued the rules on these grounds.
The ACC filed the two cases with its Pabna district office against the seven accused on December 12, 2019 on charges of irregularities involving crores of taka in supplying furniture and household items to officials of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.
According to several reports, prices of various items used to furnish the project's 966 flats for Russian engineers and others were unusually higher than market prices.
The reports claimed that pillows were each bought for Tk 5,957, and the cost of carrying it to a flat was Tk 760. An electric stove cost Tk 7,747 and the cost of carrying it from the ground floor to the top floor was Tk 6,650. The price of an electric iron was Tk 4,154 and the carrying cost was Tk 2,945, the report showed.
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