Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Wednesday ordered the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to submit a report in the court containing the details of the 11 officers who investigated 26 cases, of misappropriation of funds from Sonali Bank amounting to Tk 18.5 crore, in which a jute mills worker, Jahlam, was purposefully identified as Abu Salek, the real accused.
The HC also asked the anti-corruption body to submit an explanation on August 28 as to why departmental proceedings were filed against those officers.
The High Court bench of Justice F R M Nazmul Ahasan and Justice K M Kamrul Kader passed the order after hearing a Suo Moto rule issued earlier by the same court.
Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan appeared in the court on behalf of ACC, Advocate Md Asaduzzaman represented BRAC Bank and Barrister Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain stood for Sonali Bank.
On July 11, the ACC acknowledged that it was wrong on the part of its investigation officers to have identified Jahlam as Abu Salek, the real accused in 26 cases of misappropriation of funds from Sonali Bank.
In its internal investigation report on Jahlam’s identity mix-up, the ACC probe body also alleged that the officers of BRAC Bank and other banks had also played a role in identifying the wrong person and derailing the ACC investigators probing cases against Abu Salek.
The investigation report said that it was the duty of the investigating officers to submit the report in the court after unearthing the real facts behind the scam. So, there was no scope to pass the buck to the bank and other officials for this incident, it mentioned.
On July 16, the HC said that it would observe the steps taken by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) against its officers who were found responsible for the sufferings of Jahlam.
Yesterday the ACC lawyer informed the court that the anti-corruption body proceeded departmental action against the 11 officers who were found responsible for identity mix-up. Then the court ordered the ACC to submit the details of the officers on August 28.
Jahlam, who spent three years in jail instead of the real accused, was released from prison on February 4.
He was arrested on February 6, 2016 taking him for Abu Salek, the actual accused in 26 cases that the ACC had filed in 2014 over loan fraud and embezzlement amounting to Tk. 18.5 crore from Sonali Bank.
When the ACC sent for Salek, the summons went to Jahlam, who, in turn, met officials of the corruption watchdog and insisted that he was not Salek.
He also told the ACC that the photo that had been used to open the Sonali Bank account was not his either. But the bank’s officials still identified him as Salek and the jute mills worker was eventually arrested in Ghorashal following the ACC’s green light.
On May 27 the same year, Jahlam was transferred to the Dhaka Central Jail 2.
Last year, several media reports brought the matter of Jahlam’s innocence to the ACC’s attention, forcing further investigations into the matter.
Eventually, the ACC found Jahlam’s claims of innocence to be true.
