The High Court-appointed five-member Board of Directors (BoD) of the controversial e-commerce platform Evaly Limited headed by Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik has resigned. They have already submitted an application regarding the issue to the High Court on Wednesday, said their lawyer Barrister Morshed Ahmed Khan.
Meanwhile, a new five-member Board of Directors has already been formed to run the company. The new board included former Chairman of the Evaly Shamima Nasrin, Shamima’s mother Farida Talukder Lily and her sister’s husband Md Mamunur Rashid as per the direction of the High Court.
It has also included a representative from the Ministry of Commerce and a representative appointed by the e-commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB).
Barrister Shamim Ahmed Mehedi, a lawyer of former Evaly Chairman Shamima, said the new board members will hold their first meeting on Thursday. The board meeting might determine the new board Chairman and other functions of the company.
Following a petition filed by a customer the High Court bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar on September 22 in 2021 directed the concerned bodies to be restrained from selling, transferring or otherwise dispose of the assets of the Evaly till the disposal of the case filed with the High Court.
The same HC bench on October 18 in 2021 formed a 5-member body headed by Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, a former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, to oversee the overall management of the Evaly Limited.
Later on August 24 this year, following another petition the High Court bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar directed the court-appointed body to include Shamima and her two relatives as the board members by September 22 this year and inform it to the court by September 25.
The court-appointed board has prepared an audit report that has also been submitted to the High Court.
Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik said, "We have resigned from the board of directors of Evaly as we have completed our duties and responsibilities. Our responsibility was to prepare an audit report on Evaly and to form a new board of directors.”
He said, “We have said in the audit report that Evaly has been established through fraudulence. Its only intention was to collect money from people through fraudulence and to embezzle their money. There is no document of how much money has been collected and refunded by Evaly.
Millions of taka has been transacted by Evaly but there is no specific account, statements and documents in this regard. From this situation, it can be guessed that there might be money laundering by the Evaly."
"However, we did not declare Evaly bankrupt as new investors can invest money to the e-commerce platform in order to run it. We have appointed five members of the board of directors for Evaly in line with the High Court directives," he said.