BNP leader Moudud Ahmed gets more time for appeal in illegal occupation case

The Appellate Division has granted BNP leader Moudud Ahmed until Sep 3 to file an appeal against the High Court’s decision, for trying him in a case involving the illegal occupation of a Dhaka house.

The former minister was supposed to file the appeal on Sunday but pleaded for more time saying he had not received copies of the previous orders.
 
The four-member appeals bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha granted him until Sep 3.
 
The BNP Standing Committee member represented himself in the court while Khurshid Alam Khan stood for the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC).
 
In 2013, the ACC filed the case accusing Moudud of illegally occupying a house at the capital’s Gulshan.
 
ACC’s lawyer Khan said after the hearing that the trial court was supposed to hold hearing on the charge framing of the case on Sunday, but that might not happen as the matter is yet to be resolved by the higher court.
 
On Aug 23, the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division stayed proceedings of the case and ordered the senior BNP leader to file a ‘leave-to-appeal’ petition.
 
In May last year, investigators filed the chargesheet with the trial court . In September the court of Dhaka’s Senior Special Judge took cognisance of it.
 
Moudud moved the High Court pleading review of the trial court’s decision.
 
On Jun 23, this year, the High Court scrapped his plea.  Moudud moved the Chamber Judge’s court, which forwarded it to the Appellate Division.
 
The appeals court froze the case and ordered Moudud to file an appeal.
 
 
According to the case details, Moudud's Gulshan home originally belongs to Md Ehsan, a Pakistani national.
 
Ehsan received the rights on the house from the then Dacca Improvement Trust (DIT) in 1960.
 
Ehsan's Austrian wife Inje Mariah was added as another owner in the house's documents in 1965.

  The owners left Bangladesh in 1971 after the Liberation War started. In 1972, the property was listed as abandoned after the couple did not return.
 
Moudud Ahmed has been living in the house since 1973.
 
ACC has accused Moudud and his brother Monjur Ahmed of illegally occupying the house.
 
It says the Gulshan house is listed as abandoned property in the gazette published in 1972 and is still a state property.