Justice Sinha’s trial begins

The trial of the money laundering case filed against former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and 10 others started at a Dhaka court yesterday with deposition of the complainant.

Four accused in the case -- Farmers Bank Ltd's former first vice-president Swapan Kumar Roy, the bank's vice-president M Lutful Haque, M Shahjahan and Niranjan Chandra Saha -- were granted bail after they surrendered before the court.

Former chief justice SK Sinha and three other accused in the case were on the run.

On August 13, Judge Shaikh Nazmul Alam of the Special Judge's Court-4 of Dhaka framed charges against SK Sinha and 10 others.

The same court recorded statement of complainant Syed Iqbal Hossain for an hour. Later, defence lawyers cross-examined the witness. The judge then fixed August 25 for next hearing of the case.

In his statement, Anti-Corruption Commission's director Syed Iqbal Hossain told the court that during his inquiry he found that two persons -- M Shahjahan and Niranjan Chandra Saha -- opened two current accounts at Gulshan Corporate Branch of the bank on November 6 of 2016.

The following day they submitted two separate applications for sanctioning an amount of Tk 4 crore as loan.

Soon after getting the applications, the then branch manager and others, without scrutinizing the applications, signed and the same day and they forwarded those sanction letters to the concerned principal office for next course of action.

The principal officer, violating the bank rules and regulations, on November 8, 2016, issued two pay orders of Tk 4 crore in the name of M Shahjahan and Niranjan Chandra Saha to their current accounts.

On November 9, 2016, the amount of money was deposited to a savings account of SK Sinha at Sonali Bank Ltd's Supreme Court Branch in the capital.

SK Sinha had withdrawn the money in cash and through pay orders on different dates and transferred those money to different places.

So the bank officials, in collusion with other accused, sanctioned the loan even though they had no sole power to do so, the complainant continued.

The complainant also said that Shahjahan and Niranjan were very poor and they have no ability to run any business even though they have introduced themselves businessmen.

Moreover, the accused submitted a deed of 32 decimal property of Sashtri Roy situated in Savar which does not fulfil the terms and conditions of the bank rules.

After getting their involvement with money laundering through fake documents, the inquiry report was submitted to the commission officer in July last year.

Justice Sinha resigned from his post on November 11, 2017, from abroad.