The High Court (HC) on Sunday sought all sorts of information on persons involved in laundering money overseas, including their names, addresses and legal steps taken against them.
In an order, the HC asked the home secretary, the foreign secretary, Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to submit a report mentioning the information by December 17.
A HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Ahmed Sohel passed the order on a suo moto move with regard to some news reports published in different newspapers recently.
The HC also issued a rule asking the above-mentioned respondents and the deputy commissioner of Dhaka to explain in four weeks as to why the inaction of the respondents to take appropriate legal initiatives against the money launderers, including government officials, businessmen, politicians and bankers, should not be declared illegal.
The court fixed December 17 as the date for passing further order on the issue.
During the court proceedings, Justice Talukder, the presiding judge of the bench, observed, "Some perpetrators are laundering money to different countries, including Canada. We are getting such news."
"A huge amount of money has been laundered to different countries, including Canada, Malaysia and Singapore. Most of the launderers are government officials. We need to know their names, addresses and how they are laundering this money," he said.
He also said, "Those who are laundering money are the enemies of the country and the nation. I think they have betrayed the country and the nation."
"We cannot allow the perpetrators to continue to do so. Money is being siphoned out of the country despite having so many law-enforcement agencies and courts. So, we think a rule need to be issued," he added.
Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan was present in the court on behalf of the ACC while deputy attorney general AKM Amin Uddin Manik appeared for the state.
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