Court orders seizure of CRI tax records in ACC case against Joy, Putul, six others

A Dhaka court on Wednesday ordered the seizure of income tax records of the Centre for Research and Information (CRI) as part of an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) investigation into a case against eight people, including Sajeeb Wazed Joy and Saima Wazed Putul, the son and daughter of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Judge Shahjahan Kabir of the Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Court passed the order after the ACC filed a petition seeking the seizure of the documents.

According to the ACC petition, the case concerns allegations of receiving grants from various companies, securing income tax benefits and misappropriating funds through the CRI.

The other accused are CRI trustee Radwan Mujib Siddiq; former state minister for power, energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid Bipu; CRI Executive Director Shabbir Bin Shams; former National Board of Revenue chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan; former finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal; and Tax Appellate Tribunal member Rowshan Ara Akhter.

The petition stated that the CRI received 453,595,000 taka in corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds from 23 companies. Its total income for the 2013–14 to 2023–24 tax years was reported at 1,003,140,486 taka, of which 156,859,521 taka was allegedly misappropriated.

According to the ACC, more than 2.4785 billion taka was deposited into 25 bank accounts belonging to the CRI, while over 1.9121 billion taka was withdrawn. Transactions through the accounts totalled more than 4.39 billion taka, the petition said.

The ACC also alleged that the government suffered a loss of 3,652,742 taka in unpaid income tax.

The petition further alleged that a notification granting income tax benefits to the CRI was issued through an abuse of power. The alleged provision of improper tax benefits and the collection and misappropriation of donations from various companies are under investigation, it said.

The case was filed under Sections 409 and 109 of the Penal Code, Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and relevant provisions of the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012, according to the petition.

AKM Murtuza Ali Sagar, an ACC assistant director and investigating officer in the case, sought the seizure of all relevant records in the CRI’s income tax files, including permanent and miscellaneous documents maintained by Circle-116 under Tax Zone-6 in Dhaka. The files, listed under Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) 575941916304, cover tax years up to 2025–26.

After considering the application, the court ordered the seizure of the records.