The Supreme Court yesterday scrapped a High Court verdict that had cancelled the 13 year conviction of Relief and Disaster Management Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya in a graft case filed during the military-backed caretaker government.
The top court also ordered the High Court to hold further hearings in this case.
A three-member Appellate Division bench chaired by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the order on an appeal moved by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Senior lawyer Baset Majumder represented Maya during the hearing while Khurshid Alam Khan stood for the ACC.
Baset said the Appellate Division recently granted the government’s plea to file a leave to appeal. The High Court would hear the appeal.
An ACC official filed the case on June 13, 2007 with Sutrapur police station against Maya, now the Dhaka city unit Awami League general secretary, and six others of his family. A charge sheet was pressed on October 25 against five of them. A special court issued arrest warrant against him on October 29.
Trial proceedings began with the indictment of the accused on November 27 the same year.
According to the charge sheet, the accused amassed Tk2.97 crore in assets beyond their stated income, through corrupt means, when Maya served as state minister for shipping, concealing information on wealth of Tk5.86 crore and keeping under possession properties worth Tk6.29 crore.
A special court tried him in absentia and on February 14, 2008 sentenced him to 13 years in prison, fined him Tk5 crore and also ordered the authorities concerned to confiscate his properties worth Tk5.9 crore amassed illegally.
The court, however, acquitted Maya’s wife Parveen Chowdhury, two sons Sajedul Hossain Chowdhury and Rashedul Hossain Chowdhury, and Sajed’s wife Subarna Chowdhury.
Maya was sent to jail upon his surrender before a Dhaka court on May 20, 2009. He filed a petition with the High Court challenging the sentence on May 25.
A High Court bench scrapped the sentence on October 27, 2010.
Maya became a minister after the Awami League-led government took office in January last year.
He, however, came into limelight after his son-in-law Tarek Sayeed Chowdhury, the sacked commander of RAB 11, was found involved in the sensational seven murders in Narayanganj in April last year.
