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HC for probe into loan scams in three Shariah-based banks

Staff Correspondent
05 Dec 2022 00:00:00 | Update: 04 Dec 2022 22:08:47
HC for probe into loan scams in three Shariah-based banks

The High Court on Sunday ordered the authorities concerned to conduct a probe into the reported loan scam in three banks and submit a report before the court in four months.

The court asked the Bangladesh Bank, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, the Anti-Corruption Commission and Criminal Investigation Department and the concerned banks to submit the report by April 5.

The bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat Lizu passed the order after issuing a suo moto rule following recent newspaper reports.

The court also ordered the authorities of these three banks – Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd (IBBL), Social Islami Bank Ltd (SIBL) and First Security Islami Bank Ltd (FSIBL) – to submit lists of bank officials involved in approving loans worth thousands of crores of taka.

The bench also asked S Alam Group to produce the loan documents and its version before the court regarding the media reports about taking loans worth Tk 30,000 crore from IBBL.

It also issued a rule asking the respondents to explain in four weeks why their inaction to take action against the persons involved in the loan scams should not be declared illegal.

Secretaries at the ministries of finance, law and home affairs, the BB governor, the ACC chairman, and heads of BFIU and the CID have been made respondents to the rule.

Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan stood for the ACC and Deputy Attorney General AKM Amin Uddin Manik represented the state in the court.

AKM Amin Uddin Manik said that the court issued the order after seeing reports published in different newspapers about the bulk of bank loans and it issued the suo moto rule in this regard.

He said the court asked the authorities concerned including ACC, CID, and the central bank to conduct an inquiry and submit a report on April 5. It also asked the S Alam Group to explain the allegations against them.

“The HC bench mentioned that we are not a party. We voluntarily ordered it to verify the allegation. If there is any issue of corruption, we will look into it,” he added.

Recently a number of newspapers published several reports highlighting the irregularities in the three banks. In various ways, the information about taking out loans using fake addresses and fake companies from these banks came to the limelight.

Media reports showed that using fake accounts, fictitious people withdrew huge amounts of money from the three banks and transferred the fund. There is no transparency in the loan cases.

On Thursday, five lawyers also sent a letter to the ACC and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) in this regard to investigate whether any money laundering has taken place in the transaction of about Tk 34,000 crore from those shariah-based banks.

However, ACC secretary Md Mahbub Hossain on Thursday said that the commission has started a probe into alleged financial irregularities in the three banks. He said after receiving the news from various media, they began collecting information and data to initiate an inquiry.

Once the information is collected, further investigation will be started as per the decision of the commission and the matter is under process, he added.

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