A Dhaka court on Thursday ordered the authorities to publish a gazette asking BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman and his wife Zubaida Rahman to appear before it in a graft case.
Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Asaduzzaman passed the order fixing February 6 for submitting a report on executing the order.
On November 1, the same court issued arrest warrants against Tarique and his wife Zubaida.
Unable to arrest them, the police filed a report. As a result, the court asked the police to confiscate the immovable and movable assets of Tarique and Zubaida.
The court had also directed the officer-in-charge of Cantonment police station to submit a progress report on the implementation of the order.
However, the officer-in-charge filed a report in the court saying that none of their property was found.
The judge then directed Tarique Rahman and Zubaida Rahman to appear in court as the next step in the case and to publish the gazette through the government press.
The ACC filed the case against Tarique, Zubaida and her mother, Syeda Iqbal Mand Banu at Kafrul police station on September 26, 2007, accusing them of illegally amassing wealth and concealing information in wealth statements.
The anti-graft body pressed charges against the three in 2008.
Zubaida afterward filed a petition with the High Court, pleading it to quash proceedings in the case. The High Court in the same year stayed the proceedings in the case, which was later upheld by the Appellate Division.
The High Court, after holding the final hearing on the matter, cancelled Zubaida's on April 12, 2017. It also asked her to appear before the trial court concerned within eight weeks. Zubaida later filed a petition for leave to appeal against the High Court order.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on April 13 last year scrapped her petition and upheld the High Court order.
On June 26 of the same year, the High Court declared Tarique Rahman and Zubaida Rahman fugitive.