Barrister Nazmul Huda has claimed that former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha wanted over Tk 30 million as bribe from him sometime in 2017.
“I can’t recall the exact date, it’s stated in the case documents. SK Sinha demanded Tk 20 million for acquittal in a case and another Tk 12.5 million for a petition over releasing a bank guarantee involving Tk 25 million,” he told Bangla Tribune.
Huda, who leads the Trinamool BNP as well as heads a coalition styled Bangladesh Nationalist Alliance (BNA), started a case against Sinha on Sept 27, which was revealed on Monday.
In the case filed with the Shahbagh police station in Dhaka, he has brought charges of corruption and abusing power against Sinha.
“SK Sinha had threatened to order the rehearing of the cases, in which I was acquitted,” Huda said while speaking to Bangla Tribune on Monday.
Huda claimed that he refused to pay a bribe, before adding: “He had totally overturned a verdict in one of my cases.”
Asked why he has started a case now, he said, “Bangla national Daily Jugantor has run a report against me over these issues. So, I have sued him. But I did not pay a bribe.”
Huda was sentenced to seven years in jail and his wife Sigma Huda to three years in a case started during the military-backed caretaker government’s emergency regime on bribery charges involving Tk 24 million.
In 2011, the couple was acquitted by the High Court.
The ACC moved the Appellate Division against it when a rehearing was ordered of the appeal filed by the Hudas in the High Court.
Justice Sinha was an Appellate Division judge at the time.
After the rehearing, another High Court bench upheld the conviction but reduced Huda’s sentence last year.
Huda, a former vice-chairman of BNP, was expelled from the party in 2010 for going against the party position after Khaleda Zia had left her home of 28 years in Dhaka Cantonment after losing court battle.
He then floated a political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF), which later drove him out too.
Afterwards, in May 2014, he formed another party called the National Alliance (NA) but was met with no response.
Finally, in November 2015, he announced a new party, the ‘Trinamool BNP’ (grassroots BNP), saying the Khaleda Zia-led BNP was a ‘failed party’.
Huda also leads a political coalition styled the Bangladesh Nationalist Alliance (BNA).
In July this year, he launched a bid to join the ruling Awami League-led 14-party Alliance. He also wants to contest in the upcoming national election.