The wait has been pretty long---nearly 20years --- for the start of the trial of the accused in the 1996 share market cases.
The special tribunal constituted to try the capital market-related cases from last Sunday started hearing the deposition in three of the15 cases filed against stock brokers, companies and individuals for their alleged involvement in the 1996 stock market debacle.
The inordinate delay in starting the trial and the exclusion of a few masterminds of the 1996 stock market bubble from the list of the accused have diluted, to a great extent, the investors' interest in the trial.
Moreover, not many investors do expect any earth-shaking verdict from the tribunal after a long delay of nearly two decades. The regulatory inaction, following two stock market debacles, the second one happening in 2010, has given an impression among most investors that the securities regulator---the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) ---- is a lame duck entity.
It is not just the investors, who lost funds worth billions of taka in the collapse of the stock market on two occasions, are least interested in the trial. The media has almost ignored the start of the hearing in the 1996 scam cases on Sunday. Some newspapers carried reports on the trial in one of their inside pages while others simply overlooked the event.
Soon after the collapse of the market in 1996---in fact, the impact of the 1996 crash was far more severe than that of 2010---investors took to the street demanding the trial of the market manipulators. The act was repeated after the 2010 crash.
The government in December 1996 did constitute a probe body, headed by the then vice-chancellor of Jahangir Nagar University, to probe into the scam. The committee submitted a voluminous report in March 1997, but there was no official action on the report. Moreover, the names of a few individuals and companies, suspected to be deeply involved in the market manipulation, were not in the probe report.
The truth is that the content of the probe report and the regulatory actions were far short of the expectations of the aggrieved investors. So, the ongoing trial in the stock scam of 1996 has failed to generate the least interest among the people in general and stock market investors in particular.
Moreover, the culture of allowing crimes, financial or otherwise, to go unpunished, at times, with official patronage has caused severe erosion in public confidence in overall trial process or regulatory actions.
The popular notion that anyone having strong links with people in high places can get away with his/her crime has gained more ground in recent times. One can cite lots of instances in this connection.
It is hard to blame anyone for being too sceptical when the country's anti-graft watchdog, which legally wields sufficient power, finds no fault with the immediate past chairman of a state-owned bank, who, it is alleged, had been instrumental to the siphoning off more than Tk 40 billion from three branches of the bank in Dhaka city.
Following the stock market crash, similarly, rumours about the involvement of a few top businessmen and stock brokers had made the rounds across the country. But most of the names were missing from the probe report. So the popular perception about the immunity of the people having links with the power centre got strengthened.
The 2010 market collapse further strengthened such perception. The Khnadaker Ibrahim Khaled probe report though did not mention the names of individuals, the directions it had given were enough to launch a full-scale investigation by law enforcers against the people who were allegedly involved in the scam.
The failure to take actions against the masterminds of the 1996 scam had emboldened many others to be involved in the acts of manipulation 14 years after.
The name of one leading stockbroker was mentioned in the 1996 scam probe report. The broker in question was made one of the accused in one case involving manipulation of share prices of Chittagong Cement Factory. The action, apparently, ended there.
Only recently has the trial process of the case under the special tribunal on capital market issues re-started. The tribunal heard deposition in the Chittagong Cement case.
The same stockbroker as one of the key leaders of the DSE, allegations have it, played a key role in the manipulation of stock prices during the 2010 stock bubble burst. He was often seen rubbing his shoulder with powerful people in the government and the ruling party. Hence he went unscathed.
The 1996 stock scam cases, in fact, are seen as half-hearted and non-serious initiatives on the part of the securities regulator to hoodwink the people. The investors are more interested to see actions against the real perpetrators of the latest stock market mayhem. But is the BSEC ready to rise up to the investors' expectations?
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