Representatives of the commerce ministry and other relevant government bodies will sit on Wednesday to decide whether to approve Evaly's request for six months' time to respond in detail to the show-cause notice it received.

"We are sitting to decide what should be done regarding Evaly," Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh told The Daily Star yesterday.

The commerce secretary will chair the meeting.

The body will comprise representatives of Bangladesh Bank, the home affairs ministry, the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection, and some other government entities.

On July 19, the commerce ministry sent a letter to Evaly, asking it to explain by August 1 how it would settle its current liabilities to customers and merchants. Evaly's reply came on the last day of the deadline.

The notice ordered the e-commerce site to come up with an explanation as to why no legal action should be taken against it to protect customers and merchants and prevent the digital commerce sector from any negative impact.

It also inquired about the company's business practices.

In its reply, Evaly said it wants to have its financial statements audited by a third party and set a valuation of the company.

"We have to work on a lot of data and analytics that requires a significant amount of time and effort," Mahbi Chowdhury, senior vice-president of Evaly, told The Daily Star recently.

"So, we have replied to some of the queries and sought six months to come up with the replies to the rest of the queries in detail," Chowdhury said.

The commerce ministry's notice also asked Evaly to clarify the whereabouts of around Tk 338 crore that the platform owed to customers and merchants.

According to an investigation report by Bangladesh Bank, Evaly has a liability of Tk 213.94 crore to customers and Tk 189.85 crore to merchants.

It has assets worth Tk 91.69 crore, of which its current assets amount to Tk 65.17 crore.

The commerce ministry said it noticed that Evaly was not delivering products on time despite receiving advance payments from customers.

"The merchants from whom it gets the products are also not being paid. As a result, a large number of buyers and sellers are likely to suffer financially," the notice said.

The ministry also wants to know how much money Evaly received from customers since its inception to July 15 and the amount paid to merchants.