SC: Moudud has to leave Gulshan house

BNP leader Moudud Ahmed will have to vacate his Gulshan house as the apex court dismissed his review plea against its previous order. A five-member Appellate Division bench of Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the order on Sunday. On August 2 last year the SC had scrapped a High Court verdict which ordered the house’s mutation to his brother Manjur Ahmed's name. It also had scrapped an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) case proceeding filed against the duo for their alleged involvement in grabbing the land of the Tk300 crore house. Both sides had filed petitions with the Appellate Division to review its' verdict. The ACC case was filed against Moudud and Manjur on December 17, 2013 on allegation of grabbing the land with forged documents using his position as a civil servant during 1978 to 2006. The case statement says the house on 1.13bigha (0.374 acre) land on Gulshan Avenue that Moudud has been living in since 1973 actually belonged to a Pakistani national Md Ehsan who had received the rights to the house from the then Dacca Improvement Trust (DIT) in 1960. Ehsan along with his Austrian wife Inje Mariah, who was added as another owner of the house in 1965, left Bangladesh during the Liberation War in 1971. As they did not come back, the government in 1972 listed the property as abandoned. On the other hand, dockets of the house says Inje Maria Flaz died March 30 in 1985. But Moudud and his brother in their dockets showed that they singed an agreement to buy the house in August 10 that year. As the deed was not implemented, they filed a case which was quashed in 1993. Moudud’s brother moved the High Court in 2001 and the court in its order in 2005 asked for mutation. In 2010, the High Court accepted a petition to mutate the property under Manjur Ahmed’s name. But, Rajuk challenged the High Court order which was rejected at the Appellate Division. After the Apex court's order Moudud Ahmed told reporters that he will not leave the house. “The court did not say that the house belongs to the government. The government did not give us any condition to leave it. We will talk with the house owner Inje Mariah. This is a matter among her and us, not the government.” However, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said the government will oust any grabber after the verdict. He termed Moudud comments of not leaving the house as audacity.