Published : 03 Aug 2026, 06:08 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:29 AM
A Dhaka court has ordered the start of a trial against former National Board of Revenue (NBR) official Motiur Rahman, who came under public scrutiny in the widely discussed "goat controversy", in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) over allegations of acquiring illegal assets worth nearly Tk 55 million.
Dhaka Divisional Special Judge BM Tarikul Kabir passed the order on Monday.
The judge also fixed Sept 14 for the recording of witness testimony, ACC prosecutor Mir Ahmed Ali Salam said.
On Jul 5, ACC prosecutor Mir Ahmed urged the court to frame charges against Motiur. Defence lawyers Anwar Zahid Bhuiyan, president of the Dhaka Bar Association, and Mohammad Borhan Uddin, a prosecutor in the Pilkhana massacre case, sought his discharge from the case.
After hearing both sides, the court initially fixed Jul 21 for its order, but later deferred it to Monday.
Motiur was produced before the court on Monday, where the charges against him were read out.
When asked whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty, Motiur pleaded not guilty and sought justice. The court then formally framed charges against him and set a date for recording witness testimony.
His lawyers, Anwar and Borhan, subsequently sought bail, while ACC Prosecutor Mir Ahmed opposed the plea. The court rejected Motiur's bail application.
The ACC filed the case on Dec 15, 2024, accusing Rahman of acquiring assets worth Tk 52.88 million beyond his known sources of income and concealing information about assets worth Tk 12.77 million.
After completing its investigation, the ACC approved the charge sheet against Rahman on Feb 3. It alleged that he had submitted "false and baseless" information in his wealth statement and concealed assets worth Tk 12.42 million.
The chargesheet further alleged that, by abusing his position as a public official and through bribery and corruption, Motiur accumulated illicit assets worth Tk 54.10 million in his own name that were disproportionate to his known income.
He has been charged under Sections 26(2) and 27(1) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2004, as well as Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.
Motiur was arrested by the Detective Branch (DB) of police on Jan 14, 2025, and has remained in jail since then.
The allegations against him came to public attention during the Eid ul-Azha festival in 2024, after a Facebook post showed a young man named Ifat purchasing a goat worth Tk 1.5 million from Sadik Agro. It later emerged that Ifat was the son of Motiur Rahman, then a revenue official at Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue (NBR).
The ACC subsequently launched an investigation into corruption allegations against Rahman.
