SC extends stay on Mirza Abbas' bail

The Supreme Court yesterday extended for a week its order that stayed a High Court verdict granting bail to BNP leader Mirza Abbas in a corruption case, halting his release from prison.

A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the order in response to a stay petition filed by Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star that Mirza Abbas cannot get out of custody following the SC order.

ACC filed the case against Mirza Abbas, housing and public works minister of the then BNP-led four-party alliance government, with Shahbagh Police Station on March 6, 2014 on charge of causing the state a loss of Tk 16 crore by allocating seven acres of Rajuk's land to a journalists' cooperative society at a lower rate.

Following a petition filed by Abbas, the HC on March 9 granted him bail in the case.

Following a stay petition of the ACC, the SC on March 14 stayed for a week the HC verdict grating bail to Abbas and also asked the ACC to file a leave-to-appeal petition with this court against the HC judgement within a week.

Yesterday, the ACC lawyer told the SC that they did not get copy of the HC verdict and prayed to it for extending its stay order.