Spl tribunal for share cases getting life

Mohammad Ali | Published: June 12, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

The judge courts have started transferring long-pending cases to the newly formed Special Tribunal for the capital market for speedy disposal of the litigations, sources said.
"Till today (Thursday), around a dozen of such cases were transferred from the judge courts to the tribunal," an official said on Thursday preferring anonymity.
The long expected Special Tribunal has been fully equipped with necessary infrastructure and logistics recently in order to try the alleged share-trading offenders and scamsters in its dock.
Housed on the 9th floor at Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation (BHBFC) building in the Purana Paltan area, the tribunal has a total of six rooms including a spacious courtroom having eight benches and two docks.
Of five other rooms, one is being used as a private room (khas kamra) of the tribunal's judge and another is for his personal secretary, officials said.
One room was prepared as lock-up for keeping accused persons before producing them to the court and two others are for computer operator and other officials, they said.
The government amended relevant provisions of the Securities and Exchange Ordinance (SEO) 1969 in late 2012 empowering the government to set up one or more such special tribunal.
In January 2014, the government formed this tribunal in Dhaka through a gazette.
On February 24 last year, the tribunal got a judge appointed to hear and depose of the stock-market-related cases speedily.
On July 13, 2014, the securities regulator rented a 3,017-square-foot space, including veranda, at the BHBFC building in the city to house this special court.
In January this year, the tribunal's judge assumed his office at the rented place, with an incomplete courtroom.
As per information available with the regulator, the number of total pending cases -- both civil and criminal -- already crossed 535. The backlog was with only 52 cases as of June 1999.
Of the cases, the much-discussed ones are the 15 criminal cases filed against suspected manipulators involved in the 1996 share-market debacle and two more such cases were lodged on the 2010 scam.
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