Why Shawkat Chy's bail should not be cancelled?

The High Court yesterday issued a rule asking Jaitya Party lawmaker Shawkat Chowdhury to explain in 10 days why the lower court orders granting him bail in two loan scam cases involving Tk 94 crore should not be cancelled.

The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice JBM Hassan came up with the rule on a suomoto move during hearing bail petitions of two other detained accused in the cases filed by the Anti Corruption Commission.

The judges also fixed December 7 for passing an order on the rule and bail petitions.

The ACC filed the cases with Bangshal Police Station on May 8 and 10 against Shawkat Chowdhury, lawmaker from Nilphamari-4, the then managing director of Bangladesh Commerce Bank Md Asaduzzaman and its then manager of Bangshal branch Habibul Gani and six others.

The case statements say, Shawkat, also managing director of M/S Jamuna Agro Chemical Ltd, allegedly misappropriated Tk 94 crore from the branch in collusion with the other accused through 31 letters of credit between December 2012 and March 2015.

Shawkat got bail from the lower court concerned on September 8 and October 4 this year.