Former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and 10 others on Thursday have been indicted in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for misappropriating and laundering Tk 4 crore from then Farmers Bank in 2016.
Meanwhile, the anti-graft body interrogated Abul Kalam Azad, the former Director General (DG) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), over the health directorate's controversial deal with Regent Hospital to provide treatment for Covid-19 as part of an investigation into the allegations of graft leveled at the agency.
According to information received, Dhaka Special Judge Court-4 judge Shaikh Nazmul Haque framed the charge against the former chief justice and others and fixed August 18 as the next hearing date.
Dhaka Metropolitan Public Prosecutor Tapas Pal said that earlier the case was stayed by the High Court.
On January 5, another Dhaka court accepted the charges and issued warrants for the arrest of all the accused as they were shown fugitive in the charge sheet.
On December 9 in 2019, the commission submitted the charge sheet against SK Sinha and 10 others, including six officials of the Farmers Bank Ltd.
The commission filed the first-ever corruption case against a former chief justice in the country on July 10, 2019.
It dropped former Farmers Bank senior executive vice-president Ziauddin Ahmed from the case as he died while former audit committee chairman of the bank Mahbubul Haque Chisty was named as an accused as the investigation found evidence against him.
The five officials of Farmers Bank Ltd, now renamed as Padma Bank Ltd, are former managing director and chief executive officer AKM Shameem, first vice-presidents Swapan Kumar Roy and Shafiuddin Askaree, senior executive vice-president Gazi Salauddin and vice-president M Lutful Haque.
The rest four accused are the bank’s clients M Shahjahan, Niranjan Chandra Saha, Ranajit Chandra Saha and his wife Santree Roy.
The charge sheet stated that Niranjan and Shahjahan transferred Tk four crore from their accounts with the Gulshan Branch of the bank to Justice SK Sinha’s account with the Supreme Court Branch of Sonali Bank Limited through two pay orders--Tk two crore each--on November 9 in 2016.
The fund was withdrawn at times from Justice SK Sinha’s account, the complaint said.
The charge sheet sought trial of all the 11 accused for siphoning off the money from then Farmers Bank from November 2016 to September 2018.
It said that they tried to transfer and hide the money that constituted offences under the Money Laundering Prevention Act-2012.
On April 25 in 2018, the commission started an inquiry into a complaint from an unknown source that Tk four crore was transferred to Justice SK Sinha’s bank account from two Farmers Bank accounts.
On the other hand, Abul Kalam Azad, the former DG of Directorate General of Health Services, arrived at the ACC headquarters in Segunbagicha for a second round of questioning at 10:00 am on Thursday.
ACC spokesperson Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya said a team led by ACC Director Sheikh Md Fanafilla questioned Azad.
Azad was previously quizzed by the commission for over four hours on Wednesday.
The ACC said it had received allegations that some officials and other employees of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Directorate General of Health Services and Directorate General of Drug Administration, in collusion with each other, procured low-quality masks, PPEs and other health safety gear and embezzled millions of taka by supplying them to various hospitals.
After the interrogation, Azad claimed that he was innocent of all charges and said, “I want to make it clear that if anyone commits a crime, he should be punished. I will provide all necessary assistance in this investigation."
Azad resigned as the chief of the Directorate General of Health Services on July 21 amid a series of scams and criticisms related to Covid-19 tests.
There were several allegations against Abul Kalam Azad and some other officials of DGHS. The allegations are – approving ordinary surgical masks as N95, supplying substandard PPEs, involvement in fake coronavirus test scam and so on.
The deal with Regent Hospital was signed on March 21 in the presence of Health Minister Zahid Maleque, Azad and other high officials. The hospital did not have a valid licence to operate at that time.
The authorities later sealed off the headquarters and two branches of Regent Hospital in Dhaka for issuing fake Covid-19 test reports and other irregularities.