Charge sheet pressed against S K Sinha, 10 others

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has submitted charge sheet to a Dhaka court against 11 people, including former chief justice SK Sinha, for their alleged involvement in embezzlement and money laundering.

Investigation Officer (IO) of the case ACC director Benzir Ahmed pressed the charge sheet on Tuesday.

According to case details, Justice Sinha and 10 others have been accused of embezzling Tk4 crore from Farmers Bank, which has since been rebranded as Padma Bank Ltd.

This is a first in Bangladesh history, where a former chief justice is being charged in a case.

Some others accused are: former Farmers Bank managing director and CEO AKM Shameem, former first vice-presidents Swapan Kumar Roy and Shafiuddin Askaree, former senior executive vice-president Gazi Salauddin, and former vice-president M Lutful Haque.

Four others accused, who were clients of Farmers Bank, are Md Shahjahan, Niranjan Chandra Saha, his uncle Ranajit Chandra Saha, and Ranajit’s wife Santee Roy.

The ACC found that both Niranjan Chandra Saha and M 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 same bank, which was processed illegally and without following due process, with the help of the accused bank officials.

Ranajit was allegedly a personal secretary of Sinha’s, and Ranajit and Shahjahan are childhood friends, the ACC found in its investigation.

“What the accused committed is a scheduled offence under the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012,” the case statement says.

Dhaka/Mamun Khan/AKA