Dhaka : Bangladesh High Court asked former prime minister Khaleda Zia to surrender before a trial court within two months in connection with a graft case in which she is accused of awarding a gas field contract to a Canadian firm resulting in a loss of over 13,000 crore Taka.
“The High Court withdrew a temporary ban on proceedings over the Niko case… they asked her to surrender before the (lower) trial court in two months,” an official of the Supreme Court’s registrar office told PTI. The two-member bench comprising Justices Nuruzzaman and Zafar Ahmed rejected BNP chief Zia’s petition seeking to scrap the case and asked the concerned court to consider her bail prayer “unless she misuses the privilege”, he said. The High Court in 2008 had suspended the proceedings of the case which it lifted on Thursday.
The Niko case was launched during the past military backed interim government in 2007 after the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) accused Zia, 69, and 10 others of causing a loss of nearly 13,777 crore Taka.
Anisur Rahman
