Farmers Bank scam: Ex-CJ SK Sinha, 10 others indicted

A Dhaka court today framed 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.

Among the accused, six are former officials of Farmers Bank. They are former managing director 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.

Besides, three others -- Shahjahan, a resident of Tangail's Sreehoripur village, Ranjit Chandra Saha of the district's Jodunathpur village and his wife Santri Roy and nephew Niranjan Chandra Saha -- have also been indicted.

Of them, AKM Shamim and Gazi Salahuddin are now on bail while Mahbubul Haque Chisty is in jail. And eight others were shown fugitives in the charge sheet in the case.

Shamim, Salahuddin and Chisty claimed themselves innocent and demanded justice after Judge Shaikh Nazmul Alam of the Special Judge Court-4 of Dhaka read out the charges to them.

Charges were framed against SK Sinha and seven others in absentia.

The court fixed August 18 to start trial of the case.

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

Following the arrest warrants, Shamim and Salahudin secured bail from the court while Chisty was shown arrested as he was in jail in connection with another case filed in July 2018.

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

Farmers Bank was later renamed Padma Bank.

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 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.