SBAC Bank ex-chair, six others sued

The Anti-Corruption Commission has filed a case against former chairman of South Bangla Agriculture and Commerce Bank SM Amzad Hossain and six others for allegedly misappropriating Tk 20.6 crore from the private lender.

The six others are SBAC's former management trainee officer Topu Kumar Saha, senior officer Achinta Kumar Mandal, operation manager Monjurul Alam, vice-president SM Iqbal Mehedi, credit in-charge Nazrul Islam, and senior officer Maria Khatun.

ACC Deputy Director Gulshan Anowar Prodhan filed the case with its integrated district office yesterday.

According to the case statement, Amzad Hossain and his wife, who are owners of Khulna Builders Ltd, opened a current account with SBAC in 2015.

Amzad, who was the chairman of the bank at the time, applied for a Tk 19-crore secured overdraft (SOD) on June 1, 2016.

Within an hour of the application, Topu prepared a loan proposal without any inspection. Achinta Kumar, Monjurul and Iqbal signed the proposal.

A few hours later, the proposal was sent to SBAC's credit division, which placed it at the board meeting the following day without holding any meeting and scrutiny.

The board approved a Tk 15.53-crore SOD, according to the first information report.

On July 17, 2016, about Tk 15 crore was transferred to another current account of Khulna Builders.

Though July 17, 2016, was Saturday, all the money was withdrawn from SBAC's Khulna Branch, the FIR said.

On August 5, 2017, Amzad applied for an extension of the SOD limit, from Tk 15.53 crore to Tk 22.42 crore, though the loan was not repaid.

In the same way, the loan proposal was prepared by Topu Kumar. SBAC's Khulna branch's senior officer Maria Khatun, Nazrul Islam and SM Iqbal signed the proposal.

The board extended the limit to Tk 20.6 crore on August 8. The money was later withdrawn, according to the FIR.