The Ministry of Housing and Public Works has been asked to immediately stop its Tk13 crore project for renovation and further construction of the controversial Janata Tower building for which Rawshan Ershad, wife of deposed president HM Ershad, is fighting a court case.

The move to stop the project comes only days after Ershad and Rawshan met Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, fuelling speculations that the ruling BNP is trying to lure Ershad-led Jatiya Party into the alliance led by it to fight the next general election.

When contacted, Rawshan brushed aside such speculations. But housing ministry sources said

that in the present political context, Ershad is using Janata Tower and other pending cases against him as trump cards.

In June 1993, the former president was found guilty of corruption while in power in allocation of the 12-katha plot at Karwan Bazar on which the building is situated and sentenced to five years in prison. The court also fined him Tk 5,48,70,000, and ordered that in case of failure to pay the fine, he is to suffer imprisonment for another two years. During his rule, the former general manipulated the procedures of Rajuk plot allocation and handed over the prime land to Janata Publishers, of which Rawshan was the chairperson and owner.

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Following the court verdict, the government cancelled the 1989 allocation of the plot, took possession of the incomplete structure and deployed a platoon of Ansar personnel there at a monthly expenditure of Tk 30,000. And ownership of Janata Tower was given to the housing ministry.

But in 2000, Rawshan as 'owner' of Janata Tower filed an appeal with a court against 'confiscation' of it, pleading that when the plot was allocated in 1989, there was no legal provision for confiscation of it. The legal provision was incorporated at a later stage in 1992, and thus 'carries no value' as regards a government decision taken in 1993,according to sources in Public Works Department.

The court then issued a stay order on the 'confiscation' until disposal of the appeal. The case has remained in this state ever since.

Sources said the housing ministry did not know anything about the stay order until recently and initiated the project to renovate the 14-story Janata Tower and add four more stories to the structure to accommodate many government offices now

in rented houses in the capital.

A top official in the housing ministry expressed his surprise that they knew nothing about Rawshan's appeal and the stay order. "I do not understand why such a court matter remained unknown for over five years and we are now being told that there is a stay order on the government decision," he said seeking anonymity.

"We continued to work on the project until we were asked by the higher authorities recently to abandon the project."

Rawshan, who is now a member of parliament from Gaibandha-5 constituency, declined to make any comments in this regard saying the matter is sub-judice.

On their recent meeting with the prime minister, she admitted that they discussed matters relating to Janata Tower.

She also said her publishing company had taken a bank loan of about Tk 14 crore to construct the building. The loan was secured against her Gulshan residence. As they failed to pay back the loan, the bank recently moved to confiscate the house.