August 06, 2007	Monday	Rajab 21, 1428

DHAKA, Aug 5: The detained Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, on Sunday filed two more writ petitions with the High Court, challenging the Government’s move to try the TK500 million ‘extortion’ case against her under the Emergency Powers Rules, and the legality of the Anti-Corruption Commission's notice asking for her wealth statements.

The petitions were filed in the afternoon after the counsels for Hasina, also a former prime minister, obtained permission of the High Court bench of Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury for filing the petitions.“We have filed two separate writ petitions on Sunday and they are likely to come up for hearing before the High Court bench on Monday,” Hasina’s chief counsel Rafique-ul-Huq told reporters after filling the petitions.

A leading businessman, Noor Ali, filed the ‘extortion’ case on June 13 against Hasina, her cousin Sheikh Helal and his wife Rupa Chowdhury, alleging that he was forced to pay the money to the AL chief for her party nomination to contest the parliamentary election in 2001.

The interim government approved holding of the proceedings of the case under the Emergency Powers Rules on July 16, the day Hasina was arrested.

Earlier, another businessman Azam J Chowdhury, filed a similar extortion case, in which the same court granted bail to Hasina on July 30 and issued a rule on the government asking it to explain within two weeks why the approval of applying the emergency rules in the case would not be declared illegal. The court also ordered the government not to proceed further with the case applying the emergency rules, which was later stayed by the Supreme Court on Aug 2.

In the first writ petition of the day, Hasina's counsellors sought similar orders from the High Court.

In the second writ petition of the day, Hasina challenged the legality of the notice sent to her by the Anti-Corruption Commission on July 17 asking her to submit wealth statement to the Commission.

The petition challenged the authority of the deputy director of the ACC in issuing notice to a former prime minister asking for wealth report. The ACC Act empowers the commission itself to notify anyone asking for wealth report and it cannot delegate such power to any of its officials, the power is not subject to delegation, the petition claimed.

According to the law, the ACC, after conducting preliminary inquiries, has to be sanguine that a person is possessing wealth beyond his/her known sources of income before asking the person concerned to submit wealth report, said the petition adding that no such inquiry was conducted before notifying Hasina.

The petition also mentioned that the joint forces had seized a number of documents from Hasina's residence at the time of her arrest and that she required the documents before submitting her wealth statements.

ACC deputy director Mubara Khanam on July 17 notified former premiers SheikhHasina and Khaleda Zia to submit their wealth statements within seven working days.

Hasina, on July 19, sent a 13-line hand-written letter to the ACC, saying that the notice was ‘full of errors’ and she would not submit her wealth report until the ACC issued a fresh notice after making necessary corrections.

The ACC, after examining the notice, observed that it was issued in accordance with the law and there was no error either in the notice or in the form attached to the notice.

Hasina finally accepted the notice and applied to the ACC, seeking extension of the time limit for submission of her wealth statement. The commission accordingly extended the time limit by seven more working days from the date of expiry of the stipulated time limit.

On Tuesday the commission expressed its inability to entertain the request of the detained former prime minister to help her prepare her wealth statement.

Sheikh Hasina on July 30, in a letter to ACC chairman, sought his ‘cooperation and suggestions’ to prepare her wealth report.

The ACC on July 31 discussed her letter but decided it had nothing to do in this regard. The commission maintained the stance in its reply to Hasina's letter.