Khaleda to face graft case over coal mine contract

Dhaka – Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaled Zia has to face a coalmine graft case in the lower court as the Supreme Court on Sunday cleared the ways for the trial proceedings, officials said.

A four-member panel of judges of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the order dismissing a petition filed by Khaleda, a former prime minister.

Earlier, the High Court ruled out the similar petition by Khaleda as she wanted to scrap the proceeding of the case.

“There is no legal obstacle that the lower court continues trial proceedings of the case,” Khurshid Alam Khan, a lawyer of the Anti-Corruption Commission that filed the case against the former premier.

The High Court in September last year rejected Khaleda’s petition that challenged the legality of the trial. She filed a leave to appeal petition with the Supreme Court.

The national anti-graft commission filed the case related grafts in awarding a contract to a foreign company for extracting coal from Barapukuria mine when Khaleda was in power.

Khaleda and 15 others were accused of causing a loss of Tk 159 crore to the exchequer by awarding the contract to a Chinese company.

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