High Court halts S Alam's voluntary renunciation of Bangladeshi citizenship
The court also issued a rule asking why he should not be brought back to the country and tried.
The High Court has suspended the previous government's order that allowed Mohammed Saiful Alam, chairman of S Alam Group, to voluntarily renounce his Bangladeshi citizenship.
A bench of HC Justice Sikder Mahmudur Razi and Justice Raziuddin Ahmed issued the order today (16 November), following a writ petition filed by Islami Bank Bangladesh.
The bank's lawyer, Abdul Kaiyum, confirmed the matter to The Business Standard.
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The court also issued a rule asking why he should not be brought back to the country and tried.
The court directed the ministries of home affairs and foreign affairs to respond to the rule.
Lawyer Kaiyum said, "S Alam had taken thousands of crores of taka in loans from Islami Bank over the past several years under anonymous and proxy names, laundered the money abroad and misappropriated it.
"After siphoning off the funds, he strategically renounced his Bangladeshi citizenship and obtained citizenship in Singapore."
He added, "To prevent the bank from taking legal action against him in Bangladesh, S Alam filed a case in an international court, aiming to protect the illicitly transferred money and block efforts to recover the funds."
"As a Singaporean citizen, he approached the international court to safeguard the illegal proceeds. To stop this move, Islami Bank filed the writ petition with the High Court," Kaiyum said.
According to media reports, after establishing significant dominance in the country's banking sector, the much-debated chairman of S Alam Group, Mohammad Saiful Alam, along with his family, renounced their Bangladeshi citizenship.
On 10 October 2022, Alam, his wife Farzana Parveen, and their three sons — Ahsanul Alam, Ashraful Alam and Asadul Alam Mahir — surrendered their Bangladeshi passports. On the same day, the family was granted permanent residency in Bangladesh as foreign nationals.
These privileges were facilitated by the then Ministry of Home Affairs under instructions from high-level government authorities. Analysts believe the move was designed to ease the process of money laundering and avoid accountability during any adverse situation.
