The High Court on Sunday raised the question of why the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) was not bringing the big loan defaulters who are misappropriating thousands of crores of money to its book.
While holding hearing on a bail petition the High Court bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat also questioned, “Will the big loan defaulters remain untouched?”
The High Court said the loan defaulters are not more powerful than the law. Then why the Anti-Corruption Commission is not taking effective actions against the major loan defaulters, asked the court.
The bench observed that the ACC is busy catching only the small loan defaulters, but not the major ones.
The court made the comments while hearing a petition filed by ACC lawyers Khurshid Alam Khan and MA Aziz Khan.
They filed the petition seeking cancellation of a bail granted by a lower court to ASM Ahsanul Kabir, a former official of Shahjalal Islami Bank, in connection with a loan scam case.
The ACC filed the case in 2013 over embezzlement of money by Bismillah Group from the bank. The HC bench also expressed dissatisfaction over the ACC for not submitting charge sheet of the case even over the years.
According to the case documents, ACC submitted a charge sheet against 14 including ASM Ahsanul Kabir on October 29 in 2015 in the case. Later a trial court on October 17 in 2017 granted bail to two bank officials including Ahsanul Kabir.
Then the ACC filed petition with the High Court seeking cancellation of the bail. Following the petition the HC issued a rule on January 8 in, 2018 over the cancellation of their bail granted by the trail court. It also asked the ACC to reinvestigate the case.
The rule came to the cause-list for hearing on Sunday. While hearing the rule on Sunday the HC said that the case was filed in 2013 for misappropriation of Tk 1.1 billion. However, the case has not been disposed of yet. Who will catch the big loan defaulters, questioned the court.
