BNP files petition for vacating SC stay order on Khaleda’s bail

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia today filed a petition with the Supreme Court to vacate its stay order on the High Court ruling which granted her four-month bail in Zia Orphanage Trust Corruption case.

After receiving the petition, chamber judge of the Appellate Division Justice Hasan Foez Siddique forwarded it to the apex court’s full bench for its hearing on next Sunday.

Earlier in the day, a four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain stayed till Sunday the HC order that on Monday granted the four months’ bail to Khaleda in the graft case.

On February 8, the Special Judge's Court-5 of Dhaka sentenced Khaleda to five years' rigorous imprisonment in the graft case.

The court also jailed her elder son Tarique Rahman, now acting chairman of the BNP, and four others for 10 years and fined them Tk 2.1 crore, saying all the six convicts would have to pay the fine in equal amounts.

The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case with Ramna Police Station in July 2008, accusing the six of misappropriating over Tk 2.1 crore that came from a foreign bank as grants for orphans.

The HC bench yesterday granted her bail considering the quantum of punishment and the facts that she is 73 and suffering from various diseases, she faced trial proceedings at lower court while on bail in the case and the case records have reached the HC.