Dhanmondi abandoned property case: Court says it is a govt property

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court today quashed a case filed by one S Nehal Ahmed who sought ownership of an abandoned property in Dhanmondi worth around Tk 300 crore.

Upholding an HC verdict which ruled that the government is the owner of the property, the court said it found forgery in documents submitted in support of the case.

The property is located at House No 29 of Road No 2 in Dhanmondi.

A three-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique delivered the order after hearing four separate petitions filed by Nehal Ahmed, a claimant of the property, and the government, regarding the issue. Other two judges of the bench are Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim.

"It is being found from the documents that different signatures of the same person have been put in the papers prepared and submitted in one day to the court in connection with this case," the CJ told the lawyers for Nehal Ahmed during the hearing of his petition against the High Court verdict.

"The documents over the date of birth are also seen tampered. There is no signature and seal of the court of settlement in the relevant papers of the case. Why did such forgery take place? There must be a syndicate behind this," he added.

The apex court also affirmed the HC order that fined Tk 10,000 to senior journalist Abed Khan for claiming ownership before the HC by suppressing fact of his losing a legal battle in the court of settlement in a case over the same property, Deputy Attorney General Kazi Mynul Hassan told The Daily Star.

Details of the SC order could not be known as its full text was not released yet.

Advocate Nakib Saiful Islam, a lawyer for Nehal Ahmed, told this correspondent that there were some anomalies in the papers his client had submitted to the court.

"But it cannot be said specifically about this matter without going the full text of Appellate Division order in the case," he said.

On November 21 last year, the HC delivered verdict after holding hearing on two separate writ petitions filed Abed Khan and the government on this issue.

Deputy Attorney General Mynul Hassan said the owners of the of the land in Dhanmondi left the country in 1972 and the then government took the possession of the land as an abandoned property.

Journalists Abed Khan, Toab Khan and eight others filed a case with the first settlement court claiming the ownership of the land in 1989. Abed Khan and his brother said in the case that his father Abdul Hakim Khan had purchased the land.

The first settlement court delivered the verdict 1992 saying that the government has taken the possession and control of the land lawfully and rejected their claims.

At a stage of the legal battle, a man named S Nehal lodged a separate case with the first settlement in 1996 claiming the ownership of the same land. Interestingly, S Nehal mentioned 1987 as the year of filing of the application in the case.

Even though, the first settlement court delivered the verdict in 1997 in favour of S Nehal, DAG Kazi Mynul Hassan said.

Abed Khan filed a writ petition with the HC in 2015 for releasing the land from the list of abandoned properties in his favour. In the writ petition, Abed Khan suppressed the information of the first settlement court verdict.

The suppression of fact appeared to the HC as fraud and fined Abed Khan Tk 10,000.

The government filed a writ petition with the HC in 2018 challenging the verdict delivered by the first settlement court in 1997 in favour of S Nehal, DAG Mynul said, adding that the HC delivered the verdict in favour of the government.