(adds Hasina barred from landslide-hit areas in paragraphs 12-13)

By Nizam Ahmed

DHAKA, June 13 (Reuters) - Bangladesh's former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia and 12 others have been charged for violating laws governing trading and manufacturing companies in the country, officials said on Wednesday.

A court asked all the accused, including Khaleda's detained elder son, Tareque Rahman, to appear before it on July 16.

They were directors of the Daily Dinkal Limited, publisher of the Dainik Dinkal newspaper, a mouthpiece of Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Six of the charged people, including Tareque, Khaleda's heir apparent, and two of her former ministers have been in jail for months after being detained in an anti-corruption drive by the country's army-backed interim government.

The Joint Stock Company, a state-managed watchdog and regulator of private and public limited firms, filed a case for dodging their legal obligations at a court on Tuesday.

"The directors violated some pertinent laws as they did not hold annual general meetings and submit audit reports of the company since they took charge," a regulator official said.

The administration headed by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed has run the country since January, when it imposed a state of emergency to halt deadly political violence.

More than 170 senior leaders of the BNP and Bangladesh Awami League led by Khaleda's rival Sheikh Hasina have been held in the crackdown on corruption.

Police filed on Wednesday a new case against former prime minister Hasina for extorting some 50 million taka ($724,600).

Businessman Nur Ali alleged he was forced to pay the amount to Hasina for permission to contest in a parliamentary election in 2001, police said.

Police were also investigating a case filed against her for extorting 30 million taka ($436,000) from another businessman.

The authorities also barred Hasina on Wednesday from visiting survivors of rain-triggered mudslides that killed dozens of people in the southeast of the country, police said.

"As the country is under a state of emergency and all sorts of politics are banned, we have asked Hasina not to go to Chittaggong," said a senior officer, who declined to be named.

Hasina and Khaleda have repeatedly denied various accusations of past wrongdoing, saying charges against them are politically motivated by their opponents.

The interim government has pledged to hold a credible election before the end of 2008 following reform in the electoral system, including a new digital voters list with individual photographs.

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