SC releases full verdict on upholding Khaleda’s bail

The Supreme Court today released the full text of its verdict upholding the High Court order that granted four month’s bail to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

The full text of the verdict was released after four judges of the Appellate Division of the SC including Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain signed it.

The SC judges said in the verdict that the discretion exercised by the HC in granting bail to Khaleda Zia for a limited period of four months was not perverse or contrary to law.

The four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by the chief justice had delivered the short judgement on May 16 through dismissing two separate appeals filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission and the government challenging the High Court order of bail to Khaleda.

Other three judges of the bench are Justice Muhammad Imman Ali, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Justice Mirza Hussain Haider.

The apex court, however, directed the HC to hear and dispose of the appeal filed by Khaleda challenging the trial court verdict that convicted and sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in Zia Orphanage corruption by July 31.

The HC, on March 12, had granted bail to Khaleda, now in jail, in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

Later, the ACC and the government moved the appeals before the SC challenging the HC's bail order.

On February 8, the Special Judge's Court-5 of Dhaka sentenced Khaleda to five-year jail after it had found her and five others guilty in the graft case.

The court also sentenced Khaleda's elder son Tarique Rahman, now in the UK, and four others to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment each, and fined them a total of Tk 2.10 crore, saying that all the convicts have to pay the fine in equal amounts.

The ACC had 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.