The Supreme Court yesterday stayed the High Court verdict that doubled BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's jail term to 10 years in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

The Appellate Division of the apex court also allowed Khaleda to file two appeals with it challenging the HC verdict.

A three-member Appellate Division bench, led by Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam, passed the order following two leave to appeal petitions filed by the BNP chief against the HC judgement.

The SC also asked Khaleda's lawyers to submit within two weeks the concise statements containing the points on which they will place arguments on the appeals.

The 79-year-old former prime minister filed the leave to appeal petitions with the Appellate Division on March 14, 2019, praying to the apex court to scrap her 10-year jail sentence in the case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission.

Earlier, a petition was lodged by the ACC, following which the HC on October 30, 2018, scaled up the punishment.

Khaleda landed in jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court in Dhaka had sentenced her to five years in jail in the case.

While sentencing Khaleda, then special judge, Md Akhtaruzzaman, considered her age and social status.

The five other accused, including her son Tarique Rahman, were awarded 10 years' imprisonment for misappropriating over Tk 2.1 crore that had come from a foreign bank in grants for orphans.

Speaking to The Daily Star yesterday, Khaleda's lawyer Kayser Kamal, also the BNP's legal affairs secretary, said the former premier was accused in total 37 cases filed during the regimes of the former military-backed caretaker government (2007-08) and Sheikh Hasina-led government on different charges, including corruption, violence, arson, defamation, and sedition.

Of the 37 cases, 12 were scrapped by the HC on October 30 and 31 this year. The lower courts concerned earlier dismissed nine defamation cases and the president granted clemency to Khaleda in two cases in which she was sentenced to different prison terms, said the lawyer.

The BNP chief is now on bail in the rest of the cases.

The presidential clemency was granted to Khaleda on August 6 this year, a day after Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country in the face of a mass uprising.

During the hearing at the Appellate Division yesterday, some pro-BNP lawyers, including Zainul Abedin, AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, Md Badruddoza Badal, Nasir Uddin Ahmed Ahism, Kayser Kamal, and Md Ruhul Quddus Kazal appeared for Khaleda, while Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman and lawyer Md Ashif Hassan represented the state and the ACC respectively.