Arrest warrant issued against Chandanaish upazila chairman, wife for Tk115cr default loan

A Chattogram court today (10 July) issued arrest warrant against Chandanaish Upazila Chairman Jasim Uddin and his wife Tanzina Sultana for pay order fraud and defaulting loans of Tk115 crore.

Chattogram's Money Loan Court Judge Mujahidur Rahman issued the arrest warrant after hearing a case filed by Padma Bank, said the court's bench assistant Rezaul Karim.

The court also instructed the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Chattogram range, the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Chattogram district, and the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Chandnaish Police Station to implement the order.

According to Padma Bank records, Jashim, owner of Jessica Trade International, obtained a loan of Tk60 crore from Padma Bank's Khatunganj branch in 2016, as working capital for a trading business. 

Court information shows that, on 30 April, an arrest warrant was issued against Jasim Uddin and his wife Tanjina Sultana in the case.

After that, Jasim Uddin applied for and was granted a 6-month stay against the arrest warrant by presenting an affidavit showing payment of Tk14 crores in 17 pay orders to the High Court.

However, despite the stay order being approved on 15 May, Jasim did not pay anything to the bank till now.

As a result, the bank filed an appeal against the suspension order of the High Court Division. In view of this, the Appellate Division extended the time to Jasim Uddin three times to submit the pay orders.

However, as the defendant did not submit the pay order, the Appellate Division suspended the High Court order on 4 July.

The court observed that, despite having the financial capacity, he did not pay the decreed amount as per the instructions of the High Court and the Appellate Division, which is fraud.

In this regard, Jasim Uddin Ahmad told TBS, "I was originally supposed to pay Tk15 crore, but I paid Tk1 crore more than that to the bank."

However, the defaulter did not give any answer when asked whether he had submitted the pay order on the basis of which the High Court suspended the proceedings.

An official of Padma Bank, on condition of anonymity, said, "It is correct that he [Jasim] has paid this Tk16 crore. But he has resorted to fraud by showing the 17 pay orders through which he obtained a stay from the High Court against the order of the Debt Court."

Out of 17 pay orders number 1 to 7 (Tk5.19 crore) were submitted to the bank previously. The remaining 10 pay-orders mentioned in numbers 8 to 17 (Tk8.8 crore) have not yet been received by the bank.

According to the bank's information, in 2016 Jasim, the leader of Jessica Trade International, took a loan of Tk60 crore from the Khatunganj branch of Padma Bank for trading business. Taken under the Cash Credit-Hypothecation category, the loan was to be repaid within a year after the end of the business. However, the repayment has not been made even after nearly 8 years. 

In 2022, the bank had restructured the loan with full interest waiver, but Jashim has still not paid the amount as per the conditions. Currently, the outstanding amount is about Tk88 crore with interest.

On 28 July, 2020, Padma Bank filed a loan case (case Number-103/2020) against Jashim due to non-repayment of the loan. Later, on 29 January this year, the money loan court gave the verdict in the case where Jashim was asked to repay the loan with interest as he did not repay it even after restructuring.

It is to be noted that despite the loan default of the loan, Jasim Uddin was elected upazila chairman on 29 May by taking part in the election after obtaining a stay order from the High Court to not display information from the CIB (Credit Information Bureau) of the Bangladesh Bank.