The Special Tribunal for capital market on Monday sentenced the managing director and a director of Chic Textiles to imprisonment for four years in its first verdict in a 1996 stock market scam case. The tribunal judge, Humayun Kabir Manik, also fined Chic Textile managing director Md Maksudur Rasul and director Md Iftekhar Mahmud Tk 30 lakh each. They would need to serve six more months in jail if they fail to pay the fine. The tribunal ordered the execution of the sentences after the arrest or surrender of the convicts as they were still in hiding. It said that the fine could be used in compensating the investors affected in 1996 stock market scam. The then Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission executive director MA Rashid, based on an inquiry into the 1996 stock market scam, filed the case with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in 1997 which was later transferred to the special tribunal after its inception. According to the case records, the inquiry committee headed by the then Jahangirnagar University vice-chancellor Amirul Islam Chowdhory found that Maksudur and Iftekhar sold 8,28,464 and 8,35,000 shares of Chic Textile respectively in June-November 1996 without any declaration for making heavy profit. The prices of Chic Textile shares increased to Tk 53 on November 16, 1996 from Tk 9 in June 30, 1996 during the market bubble, commission lawyer Masud Rana Khan told New Age after the verdict referring to the case records. ‘We have proved the charges against the accused with adequate evidences and testimonies of witnesses,’ he said. MA Rashid, Amirul Islam Chowdhory, former Dhaka University finance department chairman ATM Johurul Haque, former Jute Research Institute chairman Moniruddin Ahmed, Dhaka Stock Exchange assistant general manager Ruhul Khaled and its officer Delwar Hossain had testified against the convicts. The operation of Chic Textiles had remained suspended for years and the company was thrown to over-the-counter market few years back from the main board. Dhaka Stock Exchange officials said that they had not found the company at Jatrabari in Dhaka during a visit few years back. Thousands of investors lost their belongings in the 1996 share market crash in which the market first bubbled and then burst because of manipulation in share prices. Earlier on August 3, the tribunal pronounced its first verdict sentencing stock tipster Mahbub Sarwar to imprisonment for two years for manipulating share prices during the market bubble in 2009-2010. On August 17, the tribunal jailed Bangladesh Welding Electrodes managing director Nurul Islam and the then weekly Industry editor Enayet Karim for three years on charge of manipulating share prices of the company in 2007. The court also fined them Tk 20 lakh each and said they would need to serve six more months in jail if they failed to pay the fine. The tribunal started proceedings of cases on June 21, 2015 with 17 different cases which were pending with different courts. According to statistics available with the commission, the number of cases filed by and against the commission rose to 398 till September 2012. The number was 52 in 1999. Sixteen cases related to stock market scams in 1996 and 2010-11 are still pending with different courts including the Special Tribunal.
