A Chittagong court granted bail yesterday to ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury in a corruption case over allotment of shops owned by the Chittagong City Corporation.
The Court of Metropolitan Session Judge in Chittagong, SM Mojibur Rahman passed the order yesterday when the former mayor of the CCC surrendered before the court with a bail plea, said court sources.
“The court granted the bail to ABM Mohiuddin till the next hearing date,” said Kamal Uddin Ahmed, public prosecutor of Chittagong Metropolitan.
The court also censured the counsel of the Anti-Corruption Commission as it did not take timely legislative measures.
The public prosecutor said the trial had been halted in accordance with a writ from the High Court while Mohiuddin was on bail but the HC has withdrawn their interdiction recently and Mohiuddin surrendered yesterday, on the first hearing date after the withdrawal.
On October 13, 2002, the then ACC inspector Shamsul Islam lodged a case with Kotwali police station against the former mayor and 23 others on the charge of alloting 23 CCC-owned shops at the port city’s Muradpur without any kind of tender from January 1997 to December 1997.
On November 16, 2002, the HC gave a ruling while the former mayor was on bail but later dismissed the ruling.
The then ACC Inspector Jahangir Alam submitted the charge sheet on February 9, 2006 while the HC gave an interdiction on the trial of the case on February 22, 2006 following the writ petition of Mohiuddin.
The HC withdrew the interdiction in December 2012 after rejecting the rule of writ and sent the notice to the ACC in April 2013. But the ACC counsel did not submit the notice before the lower court for a year during which time he did not inform the defense about the matter.
