A Dhaka court yesterday issued an order saying Bashundhara Group Chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan Shah Alam, his wife, and their two sons will remain free till June 25 in connection with a tax evasion case in which they had been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in absentia.Attorney General (AG) Mahbubey Alam however noted that Shah Alam and his family members must go to jail in connection with the case as they had been convicted and sentenced.Judge Mozammel Hossain of the Special Judge's Court-3 yesterday issued the order after Shah Alam, his wife Afroza Begum, and their sons Sadat Sobhan and Sayem Sobhan surrendered before it and sought bail in the case in which they had earlier been convicted and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment each.In his order, the judge said he was letting convicted Shah Alam and his family to stay free until June 25 because the High Court (HC) had earlier stayed the proceedings of the case till that date, and had asked them to surrender to the trial court after expiry of the period. The HC had also directed law enforcement agencies not to arrest or harass the convicted during the period. The prosecution did not oppose the defendants' bail petitions as the HC had earlier stayed the proceedings of the case too.On September 30, 2007, Shah Alam and his family members were convicted and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment each in absentia, in the case filed by the National Board of Revenue (NBR). On July 8 last year the same people were convicted and sentenced to two years of imprisonment each in a money laundering case filed by Gulshan police.Expressing astonishment over the trial court's yesterday's ruling, the attorney general told The Daily Star that the trial court has no authority to release Shah Alam and his family members after their surrender in connection with the cases, as they had been convicted and sentenced in those.According to the law and a recent Supreme Court (SC) decision in a case against former state minister Shahjahan Omar, any person tried, convicted, and sentenced in absentia must go to jail on surrender to the trial court, the AG added.Shahjahan Omar had been convicted and sentenced in absentia in connection with a corruption case, and when he surrendered to a special court in Dhaka on May 6 this year, the court sent him to jail for serving his sentence. The AG said the HC directed the government not to harass or arrest Shah Alam and his convicted family members, but the HC did not direct the lower court to refrain from sending them to jail after surrendering in the cases they had been convicted and sentenced.Perhaps, the trial court was misled or could not understand the precedence of the SC order in the case of Shahjahan Omar, or it was not informed about it, he said.The AG also said his office did not file appeals with the SC against the HC orders in the cases against Shah Alam and his family, as the NBR authorities had not communicated with the AG office."If the NBR authorities communicate the High Court orders to me, my office must take initiatives at the Supreme Court to overturn the High Court orders," the AG said. On the basis of the SC order in the case against Shahjahan Omar, the HC on May 3 this year directed 12 persons including Jatiya Party (Manju) Chairman Anwar Hossain Manju, and former state minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, who had been convicted and sentenced in absentia in separate cases, to surrender before trial courts concerned within two weeks, and almost all of them were sent to jail on their surrender to lower courts. Shah Alam's lawyer Barrister Ziaul Hasan on May 18 told The Daily Star that his client Shah Alam is accused in 32 cases, most of which were filed on charges of land grabbing, and some 22 of those have already been settled outside the court. He said some private citizens filed the land grabbing cases against Shah Alam with different police stations in Dhaka for getting possessions of plots they had purchased from him. He also said the cases, which had been filed against Shah Alam accusing him of murder, bribery, amassing illegal wealth, and concealing wealth information, were stayed by the HC, and Shah Alam and his family appealed to the home ministry for withdrawal of the cases. He claimed the cases against his client were not filed properly, so he cannot have any bar on free movement. On September 15 last year, the HC upon two separate writ petitions stayed for three months the proceedings of the cases against Shah Alam and his family members. The HC later extended its orders following expiry of the tenures of the previous stay orders upon separate extension prayers filed by the defendants. The HC on March 25 this year extended the stay orders again and directed Shah Alam and his family members to surrender before the trial court within three months in connection with the tried cases.
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