The High Court has expressed annoyance over the negligence of three government bodies in informing the court about the steps taken over the scandal of different e-commerce platforms.
The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Mustafizur Rahman on Tuesday expressed the annoyance for failure to submit reports on money laundering by e-commerce companies, including Evaly, and revenue collection policies for them.
The HC bench, however, set November 23 for the submission of the reports. The court asked the Commerce Ministry, National Board of Revenue (NBR) and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) to submit their reports.
Earlier on September 28, the higher court asked the three bodies to submit separate reports on how much money the rogue e-commerce firms such as Evaly and E-orange had received from the customers and where and how the funds were transferred by November 8. However, the three government bodies did not respond to the court order.
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The HC bench asked the deputy attorney general to take immediate action after talking to the attorney general.
The HC bench said, “Why would they (the three government bodies) not respond even after the notice? We will take the matter seriously.”
Addressing Deputy Attorney General Bepul Bagmar, the court said, “You talk to the attorney general and inform him of the matter. We will not tolerate this at all.”
On September 28, the HC bench also wanted the report mentioning whether there was any incident of money laundering in those fund transfers by the companies. Besides, the HC wanted to know what steps the revenue board had taken to collect revenue against the business transactions of the e-commerce companies.
The court also asked the commerce ministry to inform the jurisdiction of the 16-member technical committee for the country's e-commerce sector.
The High Court had issued the order following a hearing on three similar writ petitions filed over the fraudulent activities of the e-commerce companies that surfaced in recent months.
Advocate Md Anwarul Islam, Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir and Barrister Mohamaad Humayun Kabir Pallab filed the writ petitions.
