HC extends stay on Barapukuria case against Khaleda

The High Court today extended its stay by six months on the proceedings of Barapukuria coalmine graft case against BNP chief Khaleda Zia.

A HC bench of Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice Jafar Ahmed passed the order following a plea moved by AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, a lawyer for Khaleda.

The status of the case has not been changed although the case was filed illegally, Mahbub told the court.

Moved in 2008, the HC stayed the case proceedings and issued a rule on the government and Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to explain why the case should not be dropped.

Later the court again extended its stay order for several times. The court last time extended the order on September 2, 2014 for six months.

The verdict on Khaleda’s petition that challenged the case’s legality was set to be delivered for three times – March 10, 15 and April 5.

Justice Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice JBM Hassan sent the petitions to the chief justice for a decision as Khaleda’s counsels did not co-operate with this bench.

On April 2, Khaleda had submitted an application to the chief justice through her lawyers, voicing no-confidence on judges Moinul and Hassan.

Then Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on Monday forwarded the petition to the HC bench of Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice Jafar Ahmed.

Today, this bench extended the stay order on the case proceedings by 6 months.