ACC moves High Court to restart Barapukuria coal mine case against Khaleda

After the GATCO corruption case, the Anti Corruption Commission has now moved to revive the proceedings of the Barapukuria coal mine graft case against BNP chief Khaleda Zia.

The High Court froze the proceedings of the case, filed in 2008 during a state of emergency, for the past six and a half years.

But it will come up in the court’s cause list on Tuesday for a new hearing date.

The bench of justices Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and JBM Hassan on Monday fixed the date after the ACC moved the court..

Sixteen people, including former prime minister and 10 members of her 2001-6 Cabinet, were accused in the corruption case filed at the Shahbagh Police Station on Feb 26, 2008.

The chargesheet against all 16 was submitted on Oct 5 the same year.

According to the case details, the state had lost Tk 1.59 billion as the deal to produce, manage and maintain Dinajpur’s Barapukuria coal mine was awarded to the highest bidder violating the tender rules.

The consortium of China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) had got the contract.

The High Court in October 2008 had stayed the case proceedings for three months following a petition lodged by Khaleda seeking to quash the case.

It had also issued a rule asking why the case would not be dismissed.

The Appellate Division later upheld the stay order too, leaving the corruption case in the cold.

Khaleda, however, managed to secure a permanent bail in the case on Jan 15, 2012.

The ACC in January this year also moved to revive the GATCO corruption case against Khaleda, which was also stayed by a High Court order in 2008.

The national anti-graft agency filed the GATCO corruption case on Sept 2, 2007, during the military-installed caretaker regime, with Tejgaon police against Khaleda, her youngest son late Arafat Rahman Coco and 11 others.

The case documents say the defendants illegally awarded the contract of container handling at Chittagong port and Dhaka's Inland Container Depot to GATCO, causing the state to count Tk 145.64 million in losses.

The ACC moves to revive the cases come at a time when the BNP chief has been named as the 'instigator' in several cases of violence during the BNP-led 20-Party alliance’s ongoing transport blockade.

A Dhaka court last week issued arrest warrants for Khaleda in the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust corruption cases.

Another court on Sunday also executed a warrant to search her Gulshan political office after police said there could be explosives and fugitives there.