Dhaka, May 30 – The High Court on Wednesday expressed disappointment over the slow progress of the Basic Bank scam’s investigation and said that it could not do anything if the state watch-dog body played a silent role over the matter.“A huge amount of state money has been embezzled. But, the state agency could not do anything over the matter despite the lapses of many years since the incident. We have nothing to do, if the state agency could not do anything over the matter,” the HC bench comprising Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shohidul Karim came up with the observations in presence of investigations officers of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), who were appeared before the court as per its earlier directive.
At one stage of the hearing, the HC bench said, “We want to cover our face for the shameful incident as the ACC could not complete the investigation of any case among 56 cases filed over the Basic Bank scam despite the lapses of more than three years since the filing of the cases.”
It said that the HC bench had to give bail to the accused persons due to the slow progress of the investigation.
The ACC should go forward with five cases if it is not possible to conduct the investigations of all cases together. But, the ACC should submit the charge sheet of the cases in accordance with the law without delay, the HC bench said.
Earlier, on May 23, the same bench of the HC summoned the investigating officers of 56 BASIC Bank loan scam cases to appear before it on May 30 to explain their respective positions over the delay in completing the investigation of the cases.
The HC bench came up with order while hearing some bail petitions filed by a few accused persons, including Fazlus Sobhan, former managing director of Basic Bank, and Sipar Ahmed seeking bail in the cases.
The HC bench yesterday said that it would pass its order on the bail petitions on Thursday.
As per the HC order, a total of 8 investigation officers led by director Sayed Iqbal Hossain appeared before the court.
At one stage of the hearing, the HC bench wanted to know from Iqbal about the latest position of the investigation of the cases.
Appearing before the bench, Iqbal told the court that the investigation officers were delayed as the investigation officers are collecting documents from the various places including Bangladesh Bank.
Following the HC observations, we have been started the investigations with new form and it is now near completion.
“We are very disappointed. The accused persons are getting bail due to the delay of the investigations,” the court said.
As per Section 20A of the ACC law, the investigator has to complete the investigation of a corruption case within 180 days.
The ACC has failed to complete investigation of the loan scam cases in three years, in spite of repeated directives and observations from both the High Court Division and Appellate Division.
Both the divisions also asked the ACC to explain the reason for excluding the principal accused, Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu, former chairman of the bank, from the loan scam cases.
Bacchu was interrogated by the ACC on different occasions, but he is yet to be included in the list of accused.
Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud appeared for the bail petitioners while Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan represented the ACC during yesterday’s hearing.
According to a Bangladesh Bank (BB) inquiry, about Tk. 4,500 crore was siphoned out of the state-run bank between 2010 and 2013 when Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu chaired its board.
On July 14, 2014, the central bank sent a report on the scam to the ACC, detailing how people embezzled money from the bank through shell companies and dubious accounts. The BB found that Bacchu illegally influenced all the activities of the bank, leaving the once-sound institution in a moribund state.
In 2015, the ACC filed 56 cases against 153 persons for the scam. However, Bacchu was not made accused in any of the cases. – Staff Reporter
