When the matter came up for hearing yesterday, Barrister Fazle Noor Tapash, a counsel for Hasina, moved a time petition for engaging a competent lawyer for Hasina whose original counsel is Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud.

The caretaker government has recently appointed Barrister Rokan as one of a big panel of heavyweight lawyers to fight corruption cases for the Anti-Corruption Commission in the current combat against high-profile corruption suspects.

A division bench, comprising Justice Nozrul Islam Chowdhury and Justice M Ataur Rahman Khan, rescheduled the date of hearing.

The same HC bench has already fixed August 7 as date of hearing two petitions filed by Hasina seeking the quashing of two other graft cases against her regarding two big defence purchases during her tenure as prime minister. In the cases, she has been charged with causing financial losses to the public exchequer through buying eight MiG-29 fighter jets from Russia and a Korean-made frigate.

In May, the High Court, following a sudden move by the present interim regime, had decided to start hearing of the petition for quashing the Meghnaghat power plant graft case against Hasina.

In December 2002, Hasina filed the petition with the HC for quashing the case and it stayed all proceedings of the case in the lower court that had initiated the trial process earlier in October.

On December 11, 2001, Gulam Mostafa, a director of the now-defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption, filed the case with Ramna Police Station accusing ex-state minister for power Prof Rafiqul Islam of misappropriating Tk 17.89 crore during the process of installing the

Meghnaghat power plant. But, in the charge sheet, Hasina and three others were implicated in the case.