Chandanaish UZ Polls: Loan defaulter elected chairman
A listed loan defaulter who owes Tk 118 crore to two banks was unofficially elected chairman of Chandanaish upazila parishad in Chattogram yesterday.
Jasim Uddin, chairman of Jasika Group, took the loans from Padma Bank and Sonali Bank, and owes the former Tk 93.82 crore.
Campaigning with the motorcycle as an election symbol, he bagged 71.3 percent of the votes cast in the election, with 7,310 people voting for him.
Earlier, Padma Bank (previously the scam-ridden Farmer's Bank) had requested the Chattogram district administration to cancel Jasim's candidature for defaulting on loans.
In a letter to the Chattogram deputy commissioner on Monday, the bank sought the DC's intervention in this regard.
It also notified the Election Commission, which refused to cancel the candidature, said the bank's head of law Abdullah Al Harun.
The letter sent to the DC said, "Jasim Uddin, managing director of Jasika Trade International Ltd, is a willful defaulter of Padma Bank's Khatunganj branch. He took Tk 60 crore from Padma Bank on September 6, 2016.
"Because he failed to make regular payments, the loan became non-performing and was classified in March 2024, and this was reported to the Credit Information Bureau. Along with interest, the bank is owed Tk 93.82 crore."
It further said that since the borrower did not come forward to settle his liabilities, two cases were filed against him on December 1, 2019, and July 28, 2020, adding that the cases are currently ongoing.
Meanwhile, the EC's Additional Secretary Ashok Kumar Debnath told this newspaper they received a correspondence from the bank on Tuesday afternoon.
"By then, it was already too late and the polling materials were already out … But even if he does get elected, the local administration can choose to cancel his candidature.
"We had previously cancelled it but then got a stay order from the court and had to reinstate him."
When the bank reported him as a willful defaulter to the Bangladesh Bank's Credit Information Bureau, Jasim had obtained the stay from the High Court, preventing the central bank from putting his name on the bureau's list of loan defaulters.
The bank then moved to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to vacate the stay order, and Justice M Enayetur Rahim, a senior judge, issued another order on Monday, officially naming Jasim as a loan defaulter.
In April, a Chattogram money loan court had issued an arrest warrant against him, placed a travel ban and ordered his properties to be seized.
"He is spending the loan for purposes other than the one for which it was sanctioned. Instead of paying it back, he is generously distributing it in the constituency he is vying for," the court's judge Mujahidur Rahman had said on Sunday, in an order that directed Chandanaish Police to "immediately arrest him".
However, earlier in May, the Padma Bank itself had issued an application to the money loan court on Jasim's behalf. The application requested that the arrest warrant against him be recalled.
The court responded with a show-cause to the bank's managing director, saying the application was "unlawful".
Jasim then again appealed against the warrant and obtained the HC stay order.
Despite repeated attempts, this correspondent could not reach Jasim for comments.
Comments