The Anti-Corruption Commission probe committee on the BASIC Bank scam submitted Tuesday its report, with a recommendation for filing a raft of 54 graft cases.
However, the bank's then chief, Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu, was learnt to have been left out of the charges. There are graft allegations against him, too.
The investigation team submitted the report to the special investigations and inspections team-1 of the ACC.
A competent source in the anti-graft watchdog told the FE that the report recommended some 54 cases against the suspects for their role in lavishing out some Tk 35 billion in doubtful loans.
The official said the watchdog will look into the alleged irregularities and corruption of Mr Bacchu though there is no recommendation for doing so in the probe report.
Sheikh Bacchu is an influential leader of the Jatiya Party.
According to an ACC source, the commission does not have any evidence that can prove Bacchu's complicity in the much-talked-about banking scandal.
However, the bank sources said the former BASIC Bank chairman, Mr Bacchu, had a big role in passing the resolution on loan proposals at board meetings.
Bangladesh Bank also found Bacchu responsible for the embezzlement.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith has also repeatedly reiterated that Bacchu is the mastermind behind the BASIC scam.
Mr Muhith in a speech in the national parliament said a vested quarter is against the probe into the scam.
Bangladesh Bank sent several of its reports on the bank scam to the ACC.
But at a programme in the central bank, BB governor Dr Atiur Rahman did not say anything against the BASIC chairman.
However, central bank reports have brought charges against the former chairman of Basic Bank, Sheikh Bacchu, as responsible for the alleged embezzlement.
According to the ACC report, the commission has recommended separate cases over embezzlement in four of its branches: 23 involving the Gulshan branch, 21 Shantinagar branch, six Dilkusha branch and as many related to the main branch.
The persons recommended to be sued by the ACC include former BASIC Bank managing director Kazi Fakhrul Islam, DMDs Md Selim, Emdadul Haque, Fazlul Sobhan, Kanak Kumar Purkayastha and A Monayem Khan and general managers of credit committee Md Maniruzzaman and Shahjahan Mollah, DGM Khan Iqbal Hasan, AGM Md Ashrafuzzaman, Shantinagar branch manager Md Jalal Uddin, AGM SM Anisur Rahman Chowdhury, former manager Mohammad Ali, Gulshan branch manager Shipar Ahmed and credit in-charge of the branch SM Zahid Hasan.
It has also been recommended that the officials of the companies who took loans from BASIC Bank by dishonest means also be sued.
The chairmen and the MDs of Well Sweaters, Madina Hardware Store, Sohel Trading Agency, Tokyo Agency, Tokyo Knit Garments, Vulnerable Export Industries, Classic Accessories, Delta Systems, ARSS Enterprise, Brothers' Enterprise, AB Trade Link, Messer's RK Food Limited, Messer's Nimex Limited and others are also named.
According to the Bangladesh Bank report, the total loan disbursed by the BASIC Bank up to December 2008 stood at Tk 27 billion, which shot up to Tk 93.73 billion till March 2013.
The bank had disbursed loan worth Tk 66.73 billion in the six years and Tk 45 billion of the total was approved allegedly through breach of the relevant rules.
jasimharoon@yahoo.com
