The High Court (HC) on Monday summoned the manager of National Bank's Gulshan Commercial Branch to explain over his action of giving an opportunity to a customer to withdraw money at night from the branch.
The court has asked him to appear before it on March 12 to explain his action.
The High Court bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukdar and Justice Khizir Hayat passed the order on a Suo Motu (voluntary) move after considering a report published in this regard.
Lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan, a counsel for the Anti-Corruption Commission, brought the report to the attention of the court.
The lawyer said that withdrawal of money from a bank after office hour is a punishable offence as per the Bangladesh Bank rules.
The loan receiver withdrew the money at night after the office hour on the day the loan was sanctioned, which is alarming, added the lawyer.
Deputy Attorney General AKM Amin Uddin Manik who represented the state in the hearing said the court also issued a rule asking the respondents to explain as to why their action of giving opportunity to withdraw money from the bank at night after the office hour on December 28 in 2022 shouldn’t be declared illegal.
It also wanted to know in the rule as to why a direction shouldn’t be given to take punitive action gainst the persons involved with the transaction, added the state lawyer.
Bangladesh Bank Governor, Managing Director of the National Bank and other respondents have been asked to comply with the rule.
The court also asked the Bangladesh Bank to submit its probe report to the court regarding the issue.
According to Bangladesh Bank rules, a bank's official time is 10am to 5pm and transaction period is 10am to 3pm.
According to the pulished report, Ali Haider, owner of Infratech Construction Company Limited, withdrew Tk 226 million from National Bank's Gulshan Commercial Branch at night on December 28 in 2022.
The board of directors approved the loan in a meeting at the evening on that day. The branch received the documents of the loan approval at 6.50pm on the same day. And the loan receiver withdrew the money from 8.23pm to 9.04pm.
