Humayun Kabir Manik, a district judge, on Sunday joined as the judge in the first-ever special tribunal to deal with the stock market-related cases.
‘Humayun Kabir has submitted his joining letter to the Supreme Court, law ministry and the BSEC on Sunday,’ BSEC executive director Saifur Rahman told New Age.
Another BSEC official said that the law ministry asked the BSEC for setting up the tribunal on the commission compound. The commission was trying to set up the tribunal at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court as the BSEC is suffering from space shortage with its existing employees, he said.
The government on February 24 appointed Humayun, who had been serving as the judge in a special tribunal in Mymensingh, as the judge for the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission’s special tribunal.
The special tribunal, formed under the Securities and Exchange Ordinance 1969 for the first time, will start functioning soon, the official said.
The law ministry in January sent a proposal to the Supreme Court for
appointing Mustafizur Rahman, a district judge now deputed in the ministry, as the judge of the tribunal, but the Supreme Court recommended Humayun Kabir for the job, acting law secretary Abu Saleh Sheikh Md Zahirul Haque had told New Age earlier.
The government on December 10, 2012 amended the Securities and Exchange Ordinance 1969 making provisions for the establishment of a special tribunal to deal with the cases relating to stock markets in response to a longstanding demand from different quarters.
According to statistics available with the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, the number of cases filed by and against the commission rose to 398 till September 2012. The number was 52 in 1999.
Of the 398 cases, six were pending with the Appellate Division, 159 with the High Court, 203 with the General Certificate Court in Dhaka, nine with the Dhaka Joint District Judge’s Court, two with the Assistant Judge’s Court and the rest with different other lower courts, the data showed.
In September 2013, the commission sent the report on the progress of 17 cases to the finance ministry.
None of the 17 cases related to stock market scams in 1996 and 2010-11 have so far been disposed of even after the appointments of two new lawyers to deal with the cases, the commission had informed the finance ministry.
The commission report showed that 15 of the 17 cases were filed in connection with the 1996 stock market scam. Of them, one was pending with the Appellate Division, 12 with the High Court and two with the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.
The rest two of the 17 cases were filed in connection with stock market scam in 2010, said the report.
-With New Age input
