A High Court division bench passed the order after Muyeed moved a writ petition, challenging the validity of incorporating his name in the charge sheets of the cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

The now-defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption (Bac) on February 2, 2002 had filed a case with the Tongi and Tejgaon police stations accusing Akiz Group of Industries Ltd of dodging taxes of Tk 536 crore and Tk 32 crore.

In his writ petition, Muyeed also challenged the validity of an ACC gazette notification forming a fact-finding committee. In the petition, he said as per the rules, the ACC cannot form a committee with the officials of now-abolished Bac.

Besides staying the proceedings of the cases, the High Court bench also issued a rule upon the government and the ACC to show cause in two weeks why the charge sheets and the ACC gazette should not be declared illegal.

The respondents are the ACC chairman, cabinet secretary, principal secretary to the prime minister and the investigation officer (IO) of the cases.

In the gazette notification, the ACC had formed a committee comprising 10 Bac staff to probe the corruption cases on March 6 this year and appointed one of the committee members as the IO of the cases.

The IO submitted two supplementary charge sheets to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court on June 21, incorporating the name of Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury who is currently serving as the executive director of Brac.

The IO said in the charge-sheets that Tk 568 crore tax was not recovered from the Akiz Group since Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury as the NBR chairman had not directed the authorities concerned to file cases against the company.

Barrister Omar Sadat moved for the petitioner.