SC: Moudud must vacate Gulshan house

BNP leader Moudud Ahmed will have to vacate his Gulshan house as the apex court yesterday scrapped a High Court verdict which ordered the house’s mutation The Appellate Division bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha yesterday also scrapped a case proceeding filed for Moudud and his brother Monjur Ahmed’s alleged involvement in grabbing the land of the Tk300 crore house. “After the verdict, I think it is clear that they have been staying there as grabbers. Certainly, Rajuk will take steps,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters after the verdict. Dhaka’s housing regulator Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) filed an appeal against the High Court verdict that had ordered it for mutating the land. On the other hand, Moudud appealed against another order that upheld a lower court order accepting charges in the graft case. Yesterday, the appeals court accepted both the appeals, which means, Moudud has no right on the house and the case filed over the land grabbing would be scrapped. The BNP leader yesterday said he would file a review petition to get the house back. The case was filed against Moudud and Manjur on December 17, 2013 by the Anti-Corruption Commission for grabbing the land with forged documents using his position as a civil servant during 1978 to 2006. The charges were accepted by a trial court in Dhaka in September, 2014. Moudud moved the High Court seeking review of the charges acceptance but that was rejected. He then moved a petition with the Appellate Division. 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. In 2014, Rajuk again filed another petition for reconsideration which was accepted and the Appellate Division yesterday passed the order scrapping the High Court decision of mutating the property for Moudud and his brother. After yesterday’s verdict, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that after the High Court’s mutation order, he had gone to Austria and collected the death certificate of Inje Mariah “which proves that she died before the advance deed was made. “Now Rajuk will take action according to the law.” Moudud, however, alleged that the government moved the appeal upon vengeance. “We have been living here since 1981. It is not a state property,” he claimed.