The High Court yesterday cleared the way for the trial court to run the proceeding of a case filed against BNP leader Moudud Ahmed on charges of illegal occupation of a house at Gulshan in the capital. In an order, the HC bench of Justice Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice JBM Hassan rejected a petition filed by Moudud challenging the legality of the lower court order that accepted charges against him in the case. In its order, the HC bench said the lower court took the charges into cognisance through a legal and reasonable procedure.
Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan, counsel for the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC), told reporters that the HC declared as legal the trial court’s cognisance of the charges pressed by the ACC against the former minister.
He also said that there was no more legal hurdle for the trial court to run the case proceedings against Moudud following the HC order.
Moudud, a senior lawyer who represented himself in the court, told the media that he would appeal against the HC order.
“I will move an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the High Court verdict. The verdict is not fair. It didn’t consider my arguments,” Moudud added.
Earlier, on December 17, 2013, the ACC filed the case against Moudud and his brother Manzur on charges of grabbing a government house worth about Tk 300 crore in the city’s Gulshan area.
On May 26, 2014, ACC Deputy Director Harun-or-Rashid submitted the charge sheet before a Dhaka court against the duo. On September 14, 2014, a court took cognisance of the charge sheet against them.
According to the first information report (FIR), the Dhaka Improvement Trust, established in 1956 (now renamed as RAJUK), handed over a plot of one bigha and 14 katha in Gulshan residential area to Mohammad Ehsan on December 30, 1961.
Later, the land was registered against his wife's name, Inge Maria Flatz, an Austrian national, in 1965. Ehsan was a Pakistani national.
As Ehsan and Flatz (both non-Bengalis) had left the country before the announcement of the list of government abandoned houses (the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs) on January 21, 1972, the plot was included in the list of abandoned houses.