Plight of Jaha Alam: 11 ACC officials’ names placed at HC

The Anti-Corruption Commission today produced before the High Court the names and other relevant particulars of its 11 officials who were investigating 26 corruption cases in which jute mill worker Jaha Alam was wrongly implicated and suffered in jail for three years.

The officials are: Abdullah Al Jahid; Sheikh Mesbah Uddin; Md Masudur Rahman; Debabrata Mondal; Selina Aktar Moni; Sumitra Sen; Silvia Ferdous; Meftahul Jannat; Muhammad Joynal Abedin; Md Saiduzzaman and Rafi Md Nazmus Sadat.

ACC’s lawyer Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan placed a report containing the names and particulars of the 11 officials before the court during hearing a suomoto (voluntary) rule as per its earlier order.

After receiving the report, the HC bench of Justice FRM Nazmul Ahasan and Justice KM Kamrul Kader fixed October 24 for further hearing on this issue.

On August 21, the bench asked the ACC to submit the report to containing the names of particulars of its 11 officials before it by today.

Court passed the order after the ACC submitted a compliance report before it, saying that departmental cases have been lodged against its 11 officials who probed the corruption cases against Jaha Alam.

The court also asked the ACC to specifically mention the reasons in the report why the departmental cases have been filed against 11 officials.

Earlier on July 11 this year, the ACC had placed a probe report before the HC where it mentioned that ACC’s investigation officials were responsible for erroneously incriminating Jaha Alam in corruption cases, which resulted in him languishing in jail for three years.

“It seems that the mistake of identifying Jaha Alam as Abu Salek happened because of the investigation officials,” said the report prepared by ACC Director (legal wing) Abul Hasnat Md Abdul Wadud.

Describing the extent of the officials’ carelessness, the report said the ACC officials investigated the cases, but none of them visited Jaha Alam’s house.

Some bank officials and introducers of Salek’s bank accounts misled the investigation officials, it also mentioned.

“But it is the duty of the investigation officials to unearth the truth and present it before the court. There is no scope for shifting this duty to bank officials or someone else,” the report further said.

In 2012, the ACC filed 33 cases against a number of individuals over misappropriation of Tk 18.5 crore from Sonali Bank. Abu Salek, a businessman, was made accused in 26 of those cases.

But the ACC identified Jaha Alam as Salek. He was arrested in 2016 and sent to jail.

When the issue of wrongly implicating Jaha Alam surfaced in the media, the HC intervened and ordered his release. He was released from Kashimpur Central Jail-2 in Gazipur on February 4 this year.