The High Court on Sunday raised a question as to why the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) was not bringing the big loan defaulters to book.
While holding hearing on a bail petition, the High Court bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat also asked: "Will the big loan defaulters remain untouched?"
The High Court observed that the loan defaulters are not more powerful than the law and asked why the ACC was not taking effective actions against the big loan defaulters.
The ACC is busy catching only the small loan defaulters, but not the big ones, it observed, while hearing a petition filed by ACC lawyers Khurshid Alam Khan and MA Aziz Khan.
They filed the petition seeking cancellation of a bail granted by a lower court to ASM Ahsanul Kabir, a former official of Shahjalal Islami Bank, in connection with a loan scam case.
The ACC filed the case in 2013 over embezzlement of money by Bismillah Group from the bank.
The HC bench also expressed dissatisfaction over the ACC for not submitting the charge sheet of the case over the years.
According to the case documents, the ACC submitted a charge sheet against 14 including ASM Ahsanul Kabir on October 29 in 2015 in the case.
Later a trial court on October 17 in 2017 granted bail to two bank officials including Ahsanul Kabir.
The ACC then filed a petition with the High Court seeking cancellation of the bail.
Following the petition, the HC issued a rule on January 8 in 2018 over cancellation of their bail granted by the trail court.
It also asked the ACC to reinvestigate into the case.
The rule came to the cause-list for hearing on Sunday.
While hearing the rule, the HC said that the case was filed in 2013 for misappropriation of Tk110 crore.
However, the case has not been disposed of yet. "Who will catch the big loan defaulters?" asked the court.