Rangs, HRC chairmen get bail in ‘96 scam case

Special Tribunal on capital market Sunday granted bail to country's two top businessmen A Rouf Chowdhury, Sayed H Chowdhury and two others in a 1996 stock market scam case involving Premium Securities, a brokerage firm.
Mr. Rouf Chowdhury, chairman of the Rangs Group and Mr. Sayed H Chowdhury, chairman of the HRC Group were chairman and director respectively of the Premium Securities in 1996. The brokerage firm, however, was later disposed of by them.
Two others, granted bail by the tribunal, were Anu Jaigirdar, director and Mashiur Rahman, managing director of the scam-hit brokerage firm.  
Tribunal judge Humayun Kabir granted permanent bail to the accused as their lawyers stood guarantor for them. The judge also expressed the hope that the accused would not abuse the bail facility.
The tribunal also fixed September 30 for starting further hearing of the case.
In the light of the probe committee's report on 1996 stock market scam, the securities regulator in 1997 filed a case against A Rouf Chowdhury, MD Mashiur Rahman, and two directors Sayed H Chowdhury and Anu Jaigirdar.
The lawyers of the securities regulator said the case was filed against the accused as bulk transactions were executed through Premium Securities allegedly for manipulating share prices.
They claimed that a significant amount of transactions had remained unsettled.
After completion of hearing on September 2, the tribunal fixed September 13 (Sunday) for delivering the verdict in the case of Premium Securities.
Later, on September 8, three accused appeared before the tribunal and submitted two petitions, one for bail and another for further hearing of the case.
Then the judge said that the order on further hearing would be delivered on September 13 and the accused would enjoy bail up to the date (September 13) of court's order.
On Sunday the judge said as per section 540 of CrPC, in the event of the prayer made by the lawyers of the accused, the tribunal can recall the witnesses any time.
"Witnesses have already given deposition in this case. That's why we will have to think about the troublesome matter of recalling the respectable witnesses as some of them are elderly people," the judge said.
Then the lawyer of the accused said that the cross examination would not take more than three hours for each of the witnesses.
The tribunal then accepted the prayer saying that the cross examination should not take more than two hours for each of the witnesses.
The Tribunal received deposition of six witnesses in the case of Premium Securities.
The witnesses of the case who earlier gave deposition include former executive director of the securities regulator MA Rashid, also the petitioner in the case, chairman of probe committee Amirul Islam Chowdhury, and members of the probe committee namely ATM Zahurul Huq and Maniruddin Ahmad.
Earlier, the accused of the case were not present at the tribunal although a warrant was issued against them.  
On September 8, A Rouf Chowdhury, Mashiur Rahman and Anu Jaigirdar appeared before the tribunal and made a prayer for bail and further hearing of the case as they did not get the warrant notice duly.
On September 9, another accused Sayed H Chowdhury was also granted bail in the case of Premium Securities.
Md Sirajul Haq was the lawyer for Sayed H Chowdhury whereas Mohammad Mohsen Rashid was the lawyer for A Rouf Chowdhury, Mashiur Rahman and Anu Jaigirdar.
mufazzal.fe@gmail.com