Shwapno threatens closure after ‘repeated’ mobile court actions

Superstore Shwapno has threatened to wind up business alleging that a mobile court that slapped it with a Tk 1 million fine had denied it the opportunity to defend.

Its Executive Director Sabbir Hasan Nisar spoke about the issue at a news conference on Monday, a day after their Banani outlet was raided by a joint team of the Rapid Action Battalion, Dhaka North City Corporation, and the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution.

Nisar said the charges brought by the magistrate during the drive against the Shawpno outlet on

road no 11 in Banani ‘appeared illogical to him’.

He also claimed mobile courts were ‘repeatedly raiding its outlets’ because ‘a group was working against Shwapno’.

“We will have to stop operations if this continues,” Nisar said.

The Banani outlet of the superstore was fined on Sunday for selling beef and drinks at higher prices than fixed, cheating in weighing packaged onion, changing expiry dates of different products and storing rotten foods.

Nisar said, “They (mobile court) said the expiry date on Coke was fake. A Coca-Cola representative is here. He says these were not fake. A person suddenly assumes products like Coke, Pepsi and Sprite have fake dates on them and he slaps a fine – it is unacceptable.

“ACI company is the distributor of Tetley tea. They have put the packaging date. They (mobile court) fined us because the marketing company did not put production date.”

The executive director claimed the mobile court fined them for selling juices at different prices. “They should have known the prices vary when the flavours are different. Prices of orange juice and lemon juice of a company are different. But they did not check it

“They did not even hear our statement.”

Nisar also said it would not be possible to charge the same price for meats of old and young cows.

“Moreover, we did not have any packaged onion at the Banani outlet when they fined us for cheating in weighing onion,” he added.

Nisar said they kept aside expired products at a corner with a ‘not for sale’ tag to return those to the suppliers.

“What was our fault in doing it?” he asked.