High time to bring corrupt officials, judges to people's court: HC

Now is the time to bring corrupt military and civilian government officials as well as judges to people's court, and only then the rule of law would be established, the High Court said in a statement recently.

The court came up with the observation in the full verdict of a writ filed against a fake successor trying to claim vested property worth thousands of crore of taka at Gandharia Mouza in Savar.

An HC bench of Justice Md Ashraful Kamal and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil passed the operative part of the judgment in February 2020 which has been fully published recently.

In its observation, the HC said money earned through the exchange of labour by all kinds of working people, including farmers, labourers and garment workers, provides for food, education and other facilities for all in the country.

Hardworking labour and expatriates contribute to all salaried people so that they can fulfill their responsibilities honestly, efficiently and with impartiality and patriotism.

The hardworking brothers and sisters never commit any misdeed like corruption, nepotism and looting resources of the country.

The country's resources are looted by a handful of corrupt officials and employees, said the HC in its observation.

It added that unfortunately a number of salaried officers and employees are involved in encroaching upon the properties of farmers and workers.

Now is the time to bring them to people's court, and only then the rule of law will be established, the court said, adding that people have the highest confidence in the judges for taking care of public property, and therefore, the responsibility of the judges is to make sure that people's property cannot be grabbed by any swindler, cheat, butcher and fraudster.

In the observation of the verdict, the HC further stated that the reasons for reaching a conclusion in any case must be sufficiently reasonable while irrational verdicts make the judiciary questionable.

The HC said the judiciary will never be able to establish itself as an advanced judiciary if the wisdom and honesty of the judges and the reasons for giving judgments are not rational and ethical.

The verdict of the judge should be in simple mother tongue, i.e. in Bengali. The reasons for reaching a conclusion must be based on the best argument and judicial consideration so that a common man cannot find any mistake while reading the court verdict.

Lawyer for the petitioner Habib-Un-Nabi Muhammad Zamee told The Business Standard that, "Biresh Chandra Saha Poddar, original owner of the land, left for India in 1974, leaving behind a total of 15.74 acres of property in three spots of Gandaria Mouza under Savar Police Station.

In 1975, the government declared the property vested and issued a circular.

In 2000, the property was leased from the government for 99 years by Savar Thana Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd to provide rehabilitation for helpless families.

The lawyer said, in 2002, a man named Khetra Mohan Saha, son of original owner Biresh Chandra Saha, filed a case with the Dhaka Joint Judge's Court seeking possession of the land by making fake documents.

In that case, Kakshetra Mohan got the verdict in favour of him.

In 2017, the district judge's court also upheld the verdict of joint judge's court after Savar Thana Multipurpose Cooperative filed an appeal challenging the verdict.

The cooperative society then filed a writ with the HC challenging the verdict.

In its verdict passed in February last year, the HC said, "After a long hearing, it has been realised that all the documents submitted by Khetra Mohan had been forged and Khetra Mohan has failed to prove himself as the son of Biresh Chandra Saha."

The HC ordered that the land be taken care of by the government. At the same time, Khetra Mohan was fined Tk1 crore for making fake documents.

Lawyer Zamee said the current market value of the property is around Tk3,000 crore.

The HC said, "The verdict given by the judicial court in two phases was not correct. Khetra Mohan influenced those verdicts in one way or the other. Dishonesty has also been proven everywhere from forging documents to judicial trials."

The full verdict would be submitted to the prime minister by the registrar general of the Supreme Court, added the HC.

The judgment should be well-preserved in the Supreme Court and sent to the law ministry, the district judge and the joint judge's courts that ruled on the appeal in this case.