The High Court on Tuesday upheld a 2008 special judge court verdict that sentenced ruling Awami League lawmaker Haji Mohammad Salim to 10 years in jail for possessing properties beyond his known sources of income.

The online bench of Justice Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice AKM Zahirul Huq also asked Salim to surrender to the Special Judge Court-7 in Dhaka within 30 days after getting a copy of the judgement.

The HC bench asked the special judge court to cancel the bail granted by the High Court earlier to Salim or ensure his arrest in case of his failure to surrender within the stipulated time.

Legal experts told New Age that being a convict Salim disqualified as lawmaker as per the constitutional provisions.

According to Article 67 (1) (d), a Member of Parliament shall vacate his seat if he or she has incurred a disqualification under Clause (2) of Article 66.

Article 66 (2) says that a person shall be disqualified for being a Member of Parliament, who has been convicted for a criminal offence involving moral turpitude and sentenced to imprisonment for a term not less than two years.

The legal experts mentioned that the speaker on February 22, complying with the constitutional provisions, vacated the seat of independent MP Mohammad Shahid Islam with effect from January 28, 2021 when he was sentenced by a Kuwait court to four-year rigorous imprisonment for moral turpitude.

Asked to comment on the legal position of Salim, speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury told New Age that she would not pass any comment hearing the news from the media.

Haji Salim’s lawyer Sayeed Ahmed Raza told New Age that his client would appeal against the verdict.

The High Court in the judgement said that the convict Haji Mohammad Salim acquired and possessed 86 landed properties in the names of himself, his wife Gulshan Ara Begum and the three sons of the couple starting from 1991.

The court said that Haji Salim did not disclose the sources of the vast properties to the Anti-Corruption Commission when his wife submitted his wealth statement to the commission on his behalf.

Salim had fled the country in January 2007 after the army-led joint forces started a crackdown on corruption suspects.    

His wife submitted Salim’s wealth statements of Tk 67.44 crore 44 days later, following a High Court order, after the then ACC secretary Delwar Hossain on February 18, 2007 asked Salim and 49 other politicians and businessmen to submit their wealth statements within 72 hours.

The properties include 86 factories, various houses and flats in the capital, 12 trucks and a Nissan jeep worth Taka 77 lakh.

‘A serious question arose as to what kind of profession he had held since 1991 as a result of which he possessed the property,’ the court observed.

The court said that he had acquired and owned the property by way of dishonesty and fraud.

As Haji Salim possessed the properties through bribery, cheating, fraudulence and by applying force those should be considered properties as beyond the known sources of his income, the court said.

The properties of Salim and his late wife in question in the case shall remain confiscated under the custody of the state, the court said further.

The High Court, however, acquitted Salim of the charge of hiding information of his wealth. He had been given a three-year jail sentence on the charge by the lower court.

The High Court also acquitted Salim’s wife as she died on November 30, 2011 during the pendency of her appeal against her three-year jail term given by the same special court.

The High Court also upheld the special judge court judgement that fined Salim Tk 10 lakh, failing which he would have to suffer another year in jail.

Gulshan Ara was punished for abetting and aiding Salim in possessing the illegal properties.

Salim and his wife filed separate appeals in 2009 against the jail term handed down by the Special Judge Court-7 on April 27, 2008.

On January 12, 2015, the Appellate Division, responding to an ACC appeal, cancelled a judgement of the High Court that on November 1, 2011 scrapped the special court verdict sentencing him to 10 years in jail for possessing wealth worth Tk 26.92 crore beyond his known sources of income and to three-year imprisonment for hiding information about his wealth from the ACC.

The Appellate Division in the verdict also directed the ACC to dispose of Salim’s appeal expeditiously after holding a fresh hearing on the appeal ‘on merit’.

But the ACC took no move in the past five years to dispose of Salim’s appeal to comply with the apex court directive.

Following a recent ACC move, the High Court bench started the hearing on Salim’s appeal on January 31 and concluded it on February 24.

The hearing came after Salim’s son Irfan Salim and Irfan’s bodyguard were jailed for one year by a mobile court of the Rapid Acti