A Dhaka court has instructed the authorities concerned to publishadvertisements in two national daily newspapers asking former chief justice SK Sinha and 10 others to appear before court on February 20.
Judge KM ImrulKayes of Senior Special Judges’ Court passed the orderon Wednesday after receiving reports on execution of arrest warrant issued earlier against them.
On January 5, the court issued an arrest warrant against CJ Sinha and 10 others, for their alleged involvement in embezzlement and money laundering, after accepting a charge sheet against all the accused where they were shown as fugitives.
The arrest warrant also included former Farmers Bank Managing Director and CEO AKMShameem, former First Vice President Swapan Kumar Roy and ShafiuddinAskaree, Senior Executive Vice President and former head of Credit Division GaziSalauddin, former chairman of the bank’s audit committee MahbubulHaqueChisty, and former vice president M LutfulHaque.
Four others accused, who were clients of Farmers Bank, are MdShahjahan, Niranjan Chandra Saha, Niranjan’s uncle Ranajit Chandra Saha and Ranajit’s wife Santee Roy.
On December 10, 2019, ACC Director Benazir Ahmed, also the case investigation officer, submitted the charge sheet at this court.
Prior to that, ACC Director SyedIqbal Hossain filed the case against them with the anti-graft watchdog’s Integrated District Office 1 on July 10, 2019.
According to case details, Chief Justice Sinha and 10 others were accused of embezzling Tk4 crore from Farmers Bank, which has since been rebranded as Padma Bank Ltd.
This was the first time in the history of Bangladesh that a former chief justice was charged in such case.
The ACC found that both Niranjan and Shahjahan deposited Tk2 crore each into Sinha’s personal account in Sonali Bank, transferred from their accounts at Farmers Bank’s Gulshan Branch, by separate pay orders in 2016.
The two had collected the money with a loan from the Farmers Bank, which was allegedly processed illegally and without following due process, with the help of the accused bank officials.
