Special Correspondent :
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Sunday grilled two businessmen over allegation of Tk 4.0 crore ‘unusual transaction’ in a bank account of former Chief Justice SK Sinha.
The duo Mohammad Shahjahan and Niranjan Chandra Saha made the transaction immediately after obtaining loans from the Farmers Bank.
ACC Director Syed Iqbal Hossain grilled them for over six hours (from 10am to 4pm) at the Commission’s headquarters at Segunbagicha in Dhaka.
During quizzing, they (Shahjahan and Saha) admitted that they took Tk 2.0 crore loans each from the Gulshan branch of scam-hit Farmers Bank,” Syed Iqbal Hossain told The New Nation in the evening over phone. “One Ranjit processed the loan on their behalf,” he added.
Media reports earlier said that the duo took Tk 4.0 crore loan from Farmers Bank’s Gulshan branch in 2016 providing fake documents and the money was transferred to the former chief justice’s account held in Supreme Court branch of Sonali on November 16 through two pay orders (numbers 0092046 and 0092047).
When asked, Syed Iqbal Hossain said, “I asked them to show the deposit slips but they failed to provide it saying that they did not know anything about depositing the money.”
“We will collect the deposit slips from the bank.”
He also said that they would be summoned again.
After coming out from ACC grilling, Shahjahan told reporters that we took Tk 4.0 crore
loan from Farmers Bank and the ACC summoned us to know how we obtained it.
“We took the loan and gave it to Ranjit Babu … Ranjit is my school friend,” he added.
He, however, said that he is not aware of home purchase deal and fund transaction between Shanti Roy (wife of Ranjit) and former chief justice.
Niranjan Chandra Saha said Ranjit Babu used us to obtain the loan. The loan amount was later handed over to Ranjit, who hailed from Tangail.
Both of them claimed that they are not businessmen. They took the loan as per the desire of Ranjit.
One ACC official said that they availed the loan (Tk 4.0) facility providing fake TIN certificates and trade licenses. Immovable assets of Shanta Roy have shown as third party mortgage for the loan.
While talking to The New Nation, two lawyers of Shahjahan and Niranjan Saha said that Tk 4.0 crore was deposited in the account of former Chief Justice, as price of the six-storied building (located at Sector-6, Uttara in Dhaka), which he sold to Shanti Roy.
“The payment was made through pay orders,” claimed one of the lawyers Afaz Mahmud Rubel.
He said they have submitted the papers and documents (171 pages) related to the home purchase deed to the ACC.
“Our clients did not do anything wrong. They only helped Shanti Roy and Ranjit Roy on good faith,” said Rubel.
Ranjit Roy was the so-called PS of the former Chief Justice.
Claiming innocence of their clients, Nazmul Alam, another lawyer said, Shanti Roy engaged into the building purchase agreement with the former Chief Justice (CJ) in 2016 at Tk 6.0 crore.
After the deal was signed, she paid Tk 1.95 crore to SK Shinha for repaying loans that he owed to House Building Finance Corporation and some others. Later, Tk 4.0 crore paid through pay orders.
Both the lawyers came to the ACC headquarters with Shahjahan and Niranjan Saha.
