Full verdict on Khaleda’s Barapukuria graft published

The High Court (HC) has published a copy of the full verdict accepting legality of Barapukuria Coal Mine graft case against the BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.

Related branch of the HC published the full verdict on Wednesday. Now, as per the verdict, the BNP chief has to surrender before the trial court within the two months of getting a copy of it.  

On September 17, 2015, a HC bench of Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice Abdur Rob passed the order by vacating a 2008 stay order on the case proceedings.

The HC gave the verdict after rejecting a writ petition filed by the BNP chief in 2008 challenging the legality of trial proceedings in the case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission's (ACC) earlier that year.

ACC counsel Khurshid Alam Khan said, “The verdict says that Khaleda Zia has to surrender before the trial court within 60 days after getting a copy of the full verdict.”

The ACC filed the case on February 26, 2008 accusing Khaleda and 15 others of causing a loss of Tk 159 crore to the state exchequer by awarding a contract for operation of Barapukuria coalmine to a Chinese company through abuse of power.