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The High Court on Sunday allowed the court-appointed board of directors of the controversial e-commerce platform Evaly to withdraw Tk 23.51 million kept in the organisation's two bank accounts and utilise the money for the purposes of the company.
It has also allowed the board to sell and/or rent out the company's 22 vehicles and utilise the earnings for the same purpose.
The court directed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to deploy police force to control the crowd of customers and creditors at Evaly's office in the capital's Dhanmondi area.
The court also asked the Bangladesh Bank and National Board of Revenue (NBR) to prepare and submit a report to the court detailing where Evaly’s former chairman Shamima Nasrin and managing director Mohammad Rassel spent the customers' money.
The High Court bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar passed the order after hearing a petition filed by Md Mahbub Kabir Milon, court-appointed managing director of the company.
In its petition, the board said, “Audit firm KPMG has quoted an amount of Tk 8.6 million only as their net professional fees for conducting the audit. The respondent company is not in a position to bear the said professional fees of KPMG. As such, necessary order may be passed under section 210(10) of the Company Act.”
However, the court didn’t pass any order over the costing of the audit and asked the board of directors to finalise it independently, said the concerned lawyers.
Lawyer Morshed Ahmed Khan appeared in the court on behalf of the Evaly board of directors, while Barrister Syed Mahsib Hossain appeared for the customers of the company.
Following a petition filed by a customer the same High Court bench on September 22 in 2021 directed the concerned bodies to be restrained from selling, transferring or otherwise disposing of the assets of Evaly Limited till disposal of the case filed with the High Court.
Evaly Limited, Registrar of Joint Stock of Companies and Firms, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), Consumer Right Protection Bureau, Nagad managing director, Bkash chairman, Bangladesh Competition Commission, E-CAB Association of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), Bangladesh Bank and commerce secretary were asked to comply with the order.
Later the court on October 18 in 2021 formed a 5-member body to oversee the overall management and the company affairs of Evaly Limited. The court-appointed Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, a former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, as the chairman of the company and Mahbub Kabir Milon, an additional secretary of the government, as the ex officio managing director.
But due to the embargo imposed by the High Court, the court-appointed board of directors could not operate the accounts of the company and sell or rent or otherwise dispose of the assets of Evaly Limited. In this circumstance, the board filed the petition to bring a modification of the order that was passed on September 22 in 2021.
The court-appointed board of directors in their petition said, “The ex-managing director and CEO of the company Mohammad Rassel and ex-chairman Shamima Narsin have siphoned substantial amount of money from the bank accounts of the company to their personal bank accounts. However, the court-appointed board could not ascertain the exact amount because there were many cash withdrawals.”
As such, it is necessary to pass order towards ascertaining and recovering all the money they have siphoned from the company accounts.