The High Court Tuesday ordered the government to publish the probe report of the recent stock market crash and asked the authorities concerned to explain why legal actions should not be taken against the manipulators. A vacation bench of the court, comprising Justice Syed Mohammad Ziaul Karim and Justice ANM Bashirullah, passed the order, also asking the government to explain its "inaction" to make the report public. The order came following a writ petition by a local human rights group. The group has alleged that the government was deliberately delaying the publication of the report of the probe committee in an effort to save the scamsters. A committee, led by a former central bank deputy governor Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, submitted the probe report on the stock crash on April 7, laying the blame for the debacle to the capital market regulator and several top traders. Finance Minister AMA Muhith who received the report from the four-member committee had earlier said the government would study the findings and publish an 'edited' version of the 300-page report at a suitable time. He, however, later said that report would be made available sooner rather than later. In its order, the High Court asked the government to publish the report in full within a "reasonable time". It did not set any deadline or specify any timeframe to publish the report. But lawyer Manzil Murshed of the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) told the FE "the High Court order bars the government to unnecessarily waste time to publish the report." There has been no immediate comment from the attorney general's office or the ministry of finance as to whether they would seek stay of the order in the Supreme Court - the country's highest court. Lawyers filing the petition said the high court order would help dig up the truth about the stock crash, which has wiped out investment of hundreds of thousands of small and innocent traders. They alleged that a group of "powerful" and "influential" stock traders and officials have been trying their best to hush up the probe findings. "We hope the publication of the report will name and shame the people who were behind the crash. Especially, it would pave the way for litigations against the influential manipulators," Murshid told the FE. Murshid said small investors were concerned over the government's inaction to publish the report. "The verdict would alleviate their worries. It will also help restore the shattered confidence of the investors," he said. The petitioner said the high court also issued a rule upon the government to explain why it should not be directed to recover the money lost by hundreds of thousands of affected investors. Besides the chairman, other three members of the probe committee were: Professor Dr Toufic Ahmad Choudhury, director general of Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM), Mohammad Abdul Bari FCA, former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) and legal expert Nihat Kabir.
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