The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday filed a case against seven people including Summit Communications Limited chairman Mohammad Farid Khan and former Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission chairman engineer Md Mohiuddin Ahmed for their alleged involvement in evading government revenue of Tk 10 crore.
ACC assistant director Md Nasrullah Hossain filed the case with its integrated district office in Dhaka-1, said ACC director general Md Akhtar Hossain.
The other accused in the case are BTRC panel lawyer Khandaker Reza-E-Rakib, former BTRC commissioner (law) Md Aminul Haque Babu, former commissioner (spectrum) Sheikh Riaz Ahmed, former commissioner (finance, accounts and revenue) Mushfiq Mannan Chowdhury, and former commissioner (systems and services) Md Delwar Hossain.
According to the case, with the assistance of BTRC officials and its lawyer, Summit Communications illegally issued 142,088,136 new ordinary shares.
As per section 24 of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act, 2001, a 5.5 per cent revenue fee must be paid on the value of any share transfer or ownership change.
While the provision was applied in a 2022 share transfer case, BTRC鈥檚 panel lawyer Khandaker Reza-E-Rakib allegedly provided a misleading legal opinion鈥攃laiming the rule did not apply to Summit Communications鈥攁fter receiving illegal benefits.
Based on this opinion, the then BTRC chairman and commissioners approved the share issuance without revenue collection, causing the government to lose around Tk 10 crore.
Summit has, however, claimed that they were not informed of any such investigation by the ACC.
鈥榃hile we have not been informed of any such investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission, we wish to clarify that the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has already received the payment of Tk. 102,452,652/- as fees in compliance with BTRC鈥檚 letter dated 15 August 2024,鈥� said a statement issued by Summit Communications on August 28.