Three prosecution witnesses on Tuesday gave their statements before a Dhaka court against 11 accused including former chief justice SK Sinha for embezzling 4 crore taka from Farmers Bank Ltd (now Padma Bank Ltd).
ACC Assistant Director Monirul Islam, Assistant Vice-president and Manager (operation) of Gulshan Corporate Branch of Farmers Bank Ltd Mrinal Majumder and its Executive Officer Rezaul Hassan were the three witnesses in this case.
Judge Shaikh Nazmul Alam of the Special Judge Court-4 of Dhaka on Tuesday also fixed September 1 for the next hearing.
On August 18, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) director Syed Iqbal Hossain, also the complainant of the case, gave his statement before the same court.
On 13 August, a Dhaka court framed charges against 11 accused, including SK Sinha.
Dhaka Special Judge Court-4 Judge Sheikh Nazmul Alam framed the charges on Thursday, fixing August 18 as the date to begin the trial of the case.
Earlier on August 12, after the resumption of regular operations of the High Court Division, the court fixed August 13 for hearing on framing charges against the 11 in the money laundering case filed by Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
The other accused in the case are Gazi Salahuddin, senior executive vice president and former head of credit division, Swapan Kumar Roy, first vice president (Credit division), Shafiuddin Askari Ahmed and Md Lutful Haque, first vice presidents of the Gulshan Corporate Branch of the Farmers Bank, M Mahbubul Haque Chisti, entrepreneur director and chairman of Audit Committee of the Farmers Bank, and Mohammad Shahjahan, Niranjan Chandra Saha, Santri Roy Simi and Ranjit Chandra Saha.
On July 10, 2019, the ACC filed the case on a charge of misappropriating and laundering about 4 crore taka from Farmers Bank in 2016.
In 2017, Sinha went on leave on October 2 and left for Australia the next day amid a dispute over some of his observations over the 16th Amendment verdict.
A day after Sinha’s departure to Australia, the Supreme Court issued a statement saying he was facing 11 charges, including graft, moral turpitude and money laundering.
On November 11, 2017, Sinha resigned from his post of chief justice.
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