A Dhaka court on Monday refused to hear bail petitions submitted by four members of North South University's (NSU) trustee board in a Tk 3.03 billion money laundering case.
The four trustees are: MA Kashem, Benajir Ahmed, Rehana Rahman, and Moahammad Shajahan.
Judge KM Emrul Kayesh of the Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge's Court passed the order after lawyers of the trustees submitted four separate petitions, seeking bail in the case.
As the High Court (HC) rejected their bail petitions earlier and the matter is pending with it, the judge told the defense lawyers that he had no jurisdiction to hear the issue. He, however, fixed June 30 for the next hearing of the case.
Lawyer Ehsanul Haque Samaji and others appeared in the court on behalf of the trustees.
The same judge on May 23 allowed the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to interrogate them at the jail gate for a day in the case.
Earlier, on May 22, the HC sent four NSU trustees under the police custody of the Shahbagh Police Station in Dhaka after rejecting their anticipatory bail petition filed in the corruption case.
The officer-in-charge of the Shahbagh Police Station was asked to place the accused trustees to the lower court concerned within 24 hours from the time of taking them in their custody.
The HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo passed the order after hearing the petition filed by the trustees.
The ACC filed the case on May 5, 2022 with the ACC's integrated office in Dhaka against six persons, including these four trustees, on charge of misappropriation of Tk 3.03 billion during purchasing land for the institution.
According to the case statement, bypassing the North South University Syndicate, University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry of Education, some members of the Board of Trustees of the university purchased 9096.88 decimal of land in the name of campus development paying extra charge of Tk 3.03 billion which was later embezzled.
Among the accused, the university's four trustees, MA Kashem, Benajir Ahmed, Rehana Rahman and Moahammad Shajahan, filed the anticipatory bail petition with the HC on May 16.
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