The Crime Desk: Businessman Jasim Uddin Ahmed took a loan of Tk 60 crore from Farmers Bank by mortgaging Mahal Market in Chittagong. Failure to repay the loan on time leads to default. The bank actually owes 86 crores in interest. The bank filed a case in the financial debt court after not being able to collect the loan amount despite many negotiations. In that case, the court appointed a receiver to the OC of the Kotwali police station in Bandhki Mahal Market. The receiver started collecting market rent and depositing it in the bank. After using the ‘receiver appointment’ method, the defaulter, Jasim, took the initiative to return the defaulted loan with lightning speed. He was forced to submit Rs. 25 crore of debt to the court on February 1, only 9 months after the mortgage assets were lost. He agreed to return the remaining 35 crores in three months.
Not just appointing a receiver; Most recently, on March 28, 12 years ago in Rupali Bank’s default loan case, Hefaztur Rahman, Zahir Uddin, and eight directors, including the chairman and MD of Chittagong’s Banedi business company Mostafa Group, got bail by paying Tk 1 crore of a defaulted loan. Earlier on February 19, M/s Siddiqui & Company was released from the 18-year-old Islami Bank defaulter case by paying Tk 10.5 crore. Abu Saeed Chowdhury, the owner of Siddique Traders, paid Tk 70 lakh bail within three hours of the issuing of the arrest warrant in the Prime Bank case on February 22. Similarly, to escape from jail, the three businessmen brothers, Mohammad Hasan, Mohsin, and Salim, were forced to pay back the defaulted loan of 10 crore rupees. They are the owners of M/s Lotus Corporation of Bhatiari in Sitakunda.
Five businessmen were freed from the case by paying 60 crore rupees in the 22-year-old debt default case only after the appointment of a receiver and a ban on emigration. On November 13, the defaulter submitted the receipt for full payment of the loan to the court. The judge then revoked the ban on emigration and acquitted them of the case. The exempted are: Directors of M/s Monavi Textile Complex Limited: Idris Minhaj, Ilyas Murad, Samsuddin Riyad, Shamsul Alam Faisal, and Farzana Murad. They took a loan from IFIC Bank in 1999 and never returned it. In this way, 542 businessmen were forced to pay Tk 1,911 crore in defaulted loans in Chittagong 10 years, 15 years, and 22 years ago. From the owners of Banedi Shilpa Group, the husband and father-in-law of parliamentarians, to all the big and small businessmen who have been forced to pay defaulted loans They were forced to repay the defaulted loans to the banks due to stringent measures such as the appointment of receivers, the issuance of warrants, civil penalties, a ban on emigration, and the confiscation of passports for the defaulted loans that have been outstanding for years.
Zia Habib Ahsan, a panel lawyer for several banks on financial loan cases, said that the Chittagong financial loan court is now a role model in the country in collecting debts in cases of defaulters from 22 years old to two years old in Chittagong. Because even a year ago, the defaulters of Chittagong thought that even if they became defaulters by embezzling the bank’s money, they would remain out of touch. But the Judge of the Money Debt Court (Joint District Judge) Mujahidur Rahman started issuing civil sentences against the debtors one by one. At the same time, when he started appointing receivers on mortgaged assets, issuing sentence warrants, banning emigration, and confiscating passports, the defaulting businessmen of Chittagong were forced to return the defaulted loans one by one. Many traders had to go to jail. If the financial loan courts across the country, like those in Chittagong, take such strict measures, defaulted loans are bound to come to a tolerable level.
The senior officer of Eastern Bank, Ariful Haque, said that despite many efforts over the years, he could not collect the huge defaulted loans. A huge amount of defaulted loans is being recovered only after taking strict action by the financial debt courts. The debtors are forced to repay the money.
Court bench assistant Rezaul Karim said that due to the strict stance of the court, 542 defaulting businessmen have paid their defaulted loans of Tk 1,191 crore in one year. The amount of defaulted loan repayment is increasing every month.
Payment of Tk 138 crore failed in High Court: The court appoints a receiver over mortgage assets to recover Tk 190 crore defaulted by Agrani Bank in Chittagong. The debtors rushed to the High Court to suspend the order of the court. But after the high court upheld the order appointing the receiver, the backs of the debtors hit the wall. Eight defaulters were forced to return 138 crores of defaulted loans to the bank on November 17, after missing out on the collection of lakhs of rupees from the mortgaged assets. They are: M/s Zainab Trading Company Limited, MD Mohammad Abdullah Mahmud, Rayan Piara Nahas, Shah Yachin, Shah Imran, Shah Nawaz, Shah Mohammad Arafat, Samshul Alam, and Ayesha Siddiqa.
MP Soni’s husband returned Tk 4 crore: MP Soni’s husband, Md. Parvez Alam, was forced to return Tk 4 crore of the defaulted loan to the bank. Seven years ago, he took bail by depositing Tk 4 crore out of the Tk 15 crore of the defaulted loan. The court issued an arrest warrant against Alam, the husband of MP Khadijatul Anwar Soni, for non-payment of a defaulted loan. On February 17, 2016, One Bank filed a case against six people for defaulting on a loan of Tk 15.5 million in the city’s Khatunganj branch.
