Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a move to change its lawyers to speed up the stock market scam-related cases, BSEC sources said.
The BSEC has taken the initiative following a recommendation made by the parliamentary standing committee on capital market headed by AHM Mostafa Kamal.The Kamal committee made the move in a meeting with the BSEC which was held on April 11.
The parliamentary standing committee also recommended speedy disposal of the capital market scam-related cases which were filed after the market crashed in 1996 and 2010.
The capital market regulator on different occasion filed a total of 15 cases against different individuals and institutions in connection with the stock market scam in 1996 and it filed another two cases following the scam in 2010.
But none of them has been disposed of yet.
The capital market regulator, however, recently also informed the finance ministry that they have taken the initiative to change the lawyers who were not performing well.
According to the BSEC sources, eight lawyers are handling the cases on behalf of the commission.
Of them, four lawyers are now taking over the stock market scam-related cases on behalf of the commission — Hassan Ariff, Abul Hasnat, Mahmudul Islam, AKM Ali.
Earlier in March this year, the BSEC moved to frame a draft regulation for setting up a special tribunal to deal with securities-related cases as the number of pending cases filed by and against the BSEC were 398 till September last year.
Of the 398 cases, six are pending with the Appellate Division, 159 with the HC Division, 203 with the General Certificate Court in Dhaka, nine with the Dhaka 5th Joint District Judge’s Court, two with 4th Assistant Judge’s Court and rest of the cases with different other lower courts, the BSEC data showed.
Till June of 1999, the total pending cases filed by BSEC was only 52. The numbers of the pending cases were 75 until December 2001.
Of the cases, 17 were pending with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, 37 with the High Court Division and 21 with different lower courts.
The number reached to 125 by December 2005, 350 by December of 2010 and 378 by December of 2011.
-With New Age input
