The Supreme Court has ordered former BNP minister Barrister Nazmul Huda to surrender in a bribery case. A five-member bench of the Appellate Division Court lead by acting Chief Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah passed the order on Sunday, rejecting a petition filed by the BNP leader.
Nazmul Huda filed a petition asking the apex court’s permission to allow him to file an appeal against a High Court verdict without surrendering to the lower court.
Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan, a lawyer of the Anti-Corruption Commission’s lawyer, said Nazmul Huda must surrender to the trial court in the bribery case following the Supreme Court order.
On November 8, 2017, the High Court reduced the jail term of Nazmul Huda to four years from seven years in the case filed during the regime of military-backed caretaker government.
On August 27, 2007, a Special Judge’s Court sentenced the former BNP minister to seven years’ imprisonment while his wife to three years’ imprisonment in the case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). It also fined Nazmul Huda Tk2.5cr.
However, the High Court on March 20, 2011, acquitted them from the charge and later the Appellate Division on December 1, 2014, scrapped the HC verdict and asked for hearing the petition again.
ACC Deputy Director Shariful Islam filed the case against Barrister Nazmul Huda and his wife Sigma Huda on March 21, 2007, on a charge of taking Tk2.40cr as bribe from a person named Mir Jaher Hossain.