Former chief justice SK Sinha sentenced to 11 years jail

A Dhaka court has sentenced former Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha to 11 years jail in connection with a money embezzlement case.

Judge Sheikh Nazmul Alam of Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-4 passed the verdict on Tuesday

The court directed to confiscate Tk78 lakh deposited in his bank account, in favour of the state, and fined the convicted Tk 95 lakh.

It also sentenced eight other accused with different terms and acquitted two other accused from the charge.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case accusing the former chief justice and 10 others of accumulating illegal wealth and laundering Tk 4 crore from Farmers’ Bank on July 10 last year.

The eight accused who were sentenced to different terms of jail are: Gazi Salahuddin, senior executive vice president and former head of credit division, Swapan Kumar Roy, first vice president (Credit division), Shafiuddin Askari Ahmed and Md Lutful Haque, first vice presidents of the Gulshan Corporate Branch of the Farmers Bank, M Mahbubul Haque Chisti, entrepreneur director and chairman of Audit Committee of the Farmers Bank, Santri Roy Simi and Ranjit Chandra Saha.

Besides, Mohammad Shahjahan and Niranjan Chandra Saha were acquitted from the case.

The hearing on the closing argument from both sides ended on September 14 and October 5 was fixed to pass verdict on the case.

But, the verdict was not announced on the stipulated date as Judge Sheikh Nazmul Alam was on leave.

On October 5, Mohammad Ali Hossain, acting judge of the Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-4, fixed October 21 to announce the verdict but he again deferred the date to November 9.

UNB Adds: SK Sinha went on leave on October 2, 2017 and left for Australia on October 13 amid a row over some of his observations in the 16th amendment verdict.

Just before his departure, he had told reporters that he was not sick, contradicting the government’s claim that he went on leave on health grounds.

A day after SK Sinha’s trip to Australia, the Supreme Court issued a statement, saying he was facing 11 charges, including graft, moral turpitude and money laundering.

On November 11, 2017, he resigned from his post of chief justice.