The Janata Tower Case was a corruption

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

in Bangladesh over Janata Tower in

Kawran Bazar Kawran Bazar (), misspelled as Karwan Bazar, is a central business district and is one of the biggest commodity marketplaces in Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh. Located in Tejgaon Thana, it is a designated commercial area of the Dhaka North C ...

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

. The case lead to the conviction of former military dictator General Hussain Ershad.

Background

Janata Tower is an 11 storey building located in Kawran Bazar, Dhaka,

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. It was originally planned to be 15 floors. After construction stopped in 1991 when Ershad stepped down, the tower became a home for squatters.

History

On 14 April 1991, the Bureau of Anti Corruption (today Anti Corruption Commission) filed a case against 17 people, including former president and military autocrat Ershad and 19 others with Tejgaon Police Station. He was charged with abuse of power for collusion with

M. M. Rahmat Ullah Mian Muhammad Rahmatullah, (, 13 June 1940 – 2014) was a former East Pakistani and later Bangladeshi bureaucrat and politician. He was the former chief engineer of the Public Works Department and later the chairman of the Capital Development ...

in allotting the land for the project, and possessing unaccounted money. The

Chief Justice of Bangladesh The chief justice of Bangladesh ( – ) is the highest-ranking judge of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and the head of the country's judiciary, overseeing both the Supreme Court and all subordinate courts. The chief justice is appointed by the ...

, in his 91 page verdict, said Ershad was found guilty under the Prevention Act. On 20 November 2000, the Chief Justice sentenced the former president to seven years' imprisonment. The building was acquired by the Bangladesh government. As a result, Ershad could not participate in the

2001 Bangladeshi general election General elections were held in Bangladesh on 1 October 2001. The 300 seats of the Jatiya Sangsad were contested by 1,935 candidates representing 54 parties and 484 independents. The elections were the second to be held under the caretaker govern ...

. Ershad appealed the verdict in the High Court Division which affirmed the conviction, but reduced the sentence to five years on 24 August 2004. He was also fined 55 million taka. He was released with a year and half remaining on his sentence. Ershad's then wife

Rowshan Ershad Begum Rowshan Ershad (born 19 July 1943) is a Jatiya Party (Ershad), Jatiya Party politician from Bangladesh. She was the former Jatiya Sangsad member from the Mymensingh-4 constituency and the former Leader of the Opposition (Bangladesh), leader ...

was fined ten thousand taka. Shukur Ali Pradhan, another accused in the case, had filed to get the tower back from the government. The High Court ruled in his favor but the Supreme Court overturned it and the property remains in government ownership. Ershad, the former

President of Bangladesh President of Bangladesh (POB), officially the President of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is the head of state of Bangladesh and commander-in-chief of the Bangladesh Armed Forces. The role of the president has changed three times since ...

and chief of the

National Party National Party or Nationalist Party may refer to: Active parties * National Party of Australia, commonly known as ''The Nationals'' * Bangladesh: ** Bangladesh Nationalist Party ** Jatiya Party (Ershad) a.k.a. ''National Party (Ershad)'' * Californ ...

(''Jatiya Party''), was released on

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...

on 9 April 2001 after serving four months in jail in

Legacy

The tower was repurposed as a software park by the Bangladesh government. Matiur Rahman Chowdhury, editor of the daily

Manab Zamin ''The Daily '' ( lit. People's Land) is a major daily tabloid newspaper in Bangladesh, published from Dhaka in the Bengali language. It is the first and largest circulated Bengali tabloid daily in the world, with 19,000,000 monthly pageviews on ...

was sentenced to jail in May 2002 for contempt of court. The newspaper had published a transcript of a telephone conversation between Ershad and a High Court judge in which Ershad was seeking a more favourable verdict in the Janata Tower case.

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Janata Tower Case Law of Bangladesh Corruption in Bangladesh