Money laundering: Charge framing hearing against ex-Chief Justice Sinha, 10 others on Aug 13

A Dhaka court has fixed August 13 for hearing on framing charges against former Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and 10 others in a case filed for misappropriating and laundering about Tk 4 crore from Farmers Bank in 2016.

Judge Shaikh Nazmul Alam of the Special Judge Court-4 of Dhaka on Monday set the date after an order from the Supreme Court to reopen of regular courts.

Earlier on January 5, another Dhaka court accepted the charges and issued arrest warrants against all the accused as they have been shown fugitives in the charge sheet.

On December 10 last year, the Anti-Corruption Commission pressed charges against the 11 persons in connection with the case.

The other accused are the bank's former MD AKM Shamim, Senior Executive Vice-President and head of Credit Division Gazi Salahuddin, First Vice-President of Credit Division Swapan Kumar Roy, First Vice-President Shafiuddin Askary, former chairman of the bank's audit committee Mahbubul Haque Chisty and Vice-President Lutful Haque.

One Shahjahan of Tangail's Sreehoripur village, Ranjit Chandra Saha of the district's Jodunathpur village, his wife Santri Roy and nephew Niranjan Chandra Saha have also been made accused.

Farmers Bank was later renamed Padma Bank.

Following the arrest warrants, AKM Shamim and Gazi Salahuddin secured bail after their surrender before the court while Mahbubul Haque Chisty was shown arrested in the case as he was earlier arrested in another case in 2018.

The ACC, in October, 2018 said it found evidence of fraud involving transactions of Tk 4 crore borrowed with fake documents by two businessmen, Shahjahan and Niranjan, from the bank amd later, the money was deposited in Justice Sinha's account.

On July 10 last year, the ACC filed the case with its Integrated District Office-1 of Dhaka against SK Sinha and 10 others in this regard.

Justice Sinha resigned on November 11, 2017, from abroad. He is now in the US.