Bangladesh's former chief justice Sinha accused of ‘money laundering’

The Anti-Corruption Commission has prosecuted former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha for laundering money to buy a three-storey house in the US.

ACC Deputy Director Md Gulshan Anwar also charged SK Sinha’s brother Ananta Kumar Sinha of abetting in the act in a case started at its Dhaka office on Thursday.

Arif Sadeque, a spokesman for the national anti-graft agency, said SK Sinha sent money earned through “corruption” to Ananta, who works as a dentist in the US, by using illegal channels like Hundi when he was chief justice.       

Ananta had bought a house in the US at $145,000 after taking $187,050 loan with a 30-year term from a bank there, according to the ACC.

Ananta paid $280,000 in cash in June 2018 to buy another house after receiving $256,468 from March to June in his account with Valley Bank at Patterson in New jersey that year through a group and routed via Indonesia and Canada, the ACC case dossier reads.

To cash a $157,090 cheque, Ananta brought SK Sinha to the bank and SK Sinha told the bank he had received the fund from a friend to buy the house, according to the ACC.

The case dossier also said the house was bought in the name of Ananta but SK Sinha was its real owner.

The two brothers face up to 12 years in jail and fines if convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Money Laundering Prevention Act. 

A Dhaka court in November 2021 sentenced SK Sinha to 11 years in prison on two counts of graft in a case over the laundering of Tk 40 million from the Farmers Bank, now known as Padma Bank.

Sinha, who has lived abroad for the past four years, is the first former chief justice to be convicted of graft.

Sinha came under fire from the ruling Awami League over the verdict on the 16th amendment to the constitution and left the country on leave in October 2017.

Later, he became the first chief justice of the country to quit when he submitted his resignation from overseas, 81 days before the end of his term.

After his resignation, the Supreme Court said in a rare statement that Sinha had been facing 11 specific charges, including corruption, money laundering, financial irregularities and moral blunder.