Hall-Mark Chief
CJ to decide on lower court bail
A High Court bench yesterday sent the Anti-Corruption Commission’s petitions, seeking cancellation of Hall-Mark Group Chairman Jasmine Islam’s bail in 11 loan scam cases, to the chief justice for a decision. The ACC filed 11 criminal revision petitions with the HC in August this year, challenging the bail granted by a lower court to Jasmine Islam. Following the petitions, an HC bench of Justice Md Nizamul Huq and Justice Kashefa Hussain on September 1 issued rules asking the government to explain in three weeks why the bail of the Hall-Mark Group chairman should not be cancelled.
ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan last week placed the petitions before an HC bench led by Justice Enayetur Rahim for hearing and disposing of the rules.
The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Akram Hossain Chowdhury forwarded the petitions to Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain, saying that this bench had no jurisdiction to deal with those cases that were filed after 2010.
Khurshid told The Daily Star that the chief justice now could either send the petitions to another HC bench for hearing them or to the bench led by Justice Enayetur Rahim giving it the authority to dispose them of.
Barrister Rafique-Ul Huq appeared for Jasmine.
On August 4, the Senior Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka granted Jasmine bail in all the 11 cases filed by the ACC after she pledged to pay back Tk 2,600 crore that her company swindled out of Sonali Bank, in monthly instalments of Tk 100 crore.
The ACC on October 4 last year filed the cases against 27 top officials of Sonali Bank and Hall-Mark Group for their involvement in the scam.
Tanvir Mahmud, managing director of the group who masterminded the fraud, is now in jail.
According to a Bangladesh Bank investigation in May 2012, Hall-Mark and five other companies with the connivance of bank officials had taken out loans of Tk 3,547 crore from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank using forged documents.
Hall-Mark alone took around Tk 2,600 crore.
-With The Daily Star input
