Shahjahan Siraj's wife gets 32 years in 4 cases

Dhaka, Aug 27 (bdnews24.com) - A Dhaka court Tuesday sentenced Rabeya Siraj, wife of former minister Shahjahan Siraj, to a 32-year jail term in four separate cases of tax dodging and concealing tax-related information. The court also fined her Tk 4 lakh. Failure to pay the amount will result in her having to suffer another two years in jail, the court ruled in the absence of the convict. As the four verdicts will be executed simultaneously, the convict would have to spend five years behind bars, which is the maximum punishment for her. Each verdict carries two counts of charges that have separate jail terms from a minimum of three years to a maximum of five years. All add up to 32 years. The verdicts would come into effect the day the convict was arrested or surrendered. The Special Judge's Court-4 of judge Shamsunnahar Begum delivered the verdicts Monday. The judge in her verdict said: "The accused person has been given a five-year jail term and fined Tk 50,000, in default to suffer another three months in jail for hiding information about tax under the Income Tax Ordinance." "Besides, she has been given a three-year jail term, fined Tk 50,000—in default to suffer another three months in jail, for evading tax." The judge also delivered the same verdict in three other cases against her. The court ordered confiscation of the 30 decimal and 50 decimal pieces of land in the first and fourth cases of dodged tax. Protap Chandra Pal, assistant tax commissioner of the National Board of Revenue, filed five cases with Dhaka senior special judge Md Azizul Haque's court on July 16. Of the cases, verdicts in four were delivered Monday. The case proceedings said Rabeya Siraj dodged Tk 4,800 tax in the tax year 2003-04, Tk 85,936 in 1997-98, Tk 1.36 lakh in 1995-96 and Tk 5,566 in 1988-89. The charges in the cases were framed in the Special Judge's Court on August 8. The examining of the witnesses was completed on August 15. The judge after hearing the argument of the state on Aug 16 fixed the date for delivering the verdict. Earlier, Rabeya's daughter-in-law Farzana Khan was sentenced to six years, Mosaddek Ali Falu's wife Mahbuba Sultana to eight years and former BNP lawmaker Ali Asghar Loby to eight years in jail on similar charges.