S Alam seeks to become party to HC order

S Alam Group on Monday submitted two petitions, one seeking to be made a party to a probe ordered by the High Court, and the other seeking a retraction of the probe and a gag order on media.

The first petition was made to the HC, while the latter was submitted to the attorney-general's office.

The HC had earlier on August 6 issued a suo moto rule directing a probe into allegations that S Alam Group owner Mohammed Saiful Alam and his wife Farzana Parveen are running offshore businesses without Bangladesh Bank's permission.

In the petition to the HC, Saiful Alam and Farzana Parveen requested the court to allow them to become a party in the suo muto rule ordering the probe so they can place their arguments, petitions and appeals before the court through their lawyers.

The second petition is currently filed with the attorney general's office and will be submitted later to the HC once they have been made a party to the suo moto rule. This one seeks a recall of the same order, and also appealed the HC to order media, including The Daily Star, and lawyers not to make any report or comments on the HC rule and order about S Alam Group.

Deputy Attorney General Saifuddin Khaled shared this information with The Daily Star.

He said S Alam Group submitted the petitions to the HC through senior lawyer Barrister Ajmalul Hossain.

The HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat Lizu may hold hearing on the petitions on Sunday.

Earlier on August 13, the same bench declined to entertain a verbal prayer by Ajmalul for recalling its August 6 order in relation to The Daily Star report, that found S Alam has built at least about $1 billion business empire in Singapore. The Daily Star investigation also found S Alam never took permission from Bangladesh Bank to invest or transfer any funds abroad.

The August 13 verbal petition came just three days after S Alam served a legal notice on the government and four national dailies, including The Daily Star, essentially demanding that these newspapers publish no news on him or his business operations.

The HC had issued the suo moto rule on August 6 following a report in this newspaper headlined S Alam's Aladdin's lamp that was published on August 4.

The HC bench on August 6 ordered the ACC, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) and Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police to investigate the allegations disclosed in the report.

The HC asked the Bangladesh Bank governor and head of BFIU to come up with a report clarifying whether any permission and approval from Bangladesh Bank has been given to S Alam Group to take the "money in question" to the foreign countries from Bangladesh.

ACC chairman, secretaries at the ministries of finance, Bank and Financial Institution Division, foreign affairs, law and home affairs, chairman of National Board of Revenue (NBR), inspector general (IG) of police, special police super of immigration, and deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of Dhaka have also been made respondents to the rule.

The HC asked The Daily Star editor to submit an affidavit with regard to the authenticity of its report published on August 4 to this court by October 10 and fixed the same date for passing further order on this issue.