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Former Director General (DG) of the Health Department Abul Kalam Azad returned to the court to surrender in the Regent scandal case.
He appeared in the Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge's Court on Tuesday, five days after the ACC filed the chargesheet in the case. He also surrendered through a lawyer and applied for bail, reports bdnews24.com.
But Judge KM Imrul Kayesh could not hear Azad's plea as he was busy with another case. The court asked him to come another day later.
The lawyer then withdrew his application for surrender and Azad left the court premises, said ACC General Registration Branch Officer. Zulfiqar informed.
A total of six people, including Regent Hospital Chairman Mohammad Shahed and Health Department's Abul Kalam Azad, have been charged in the case on charges of 'embezzling government funds' by contracting for the collection and treatment of coronavirus despite the lack of licence.
ACC Deputy Director Farid Ahmed Patwari, the investigating officer in the case, filed the chargesheet in the court on September 30.
The other four accused are- Aminul Hasan, former director of the health department, deputy director (hospital-1) Md. Yunus Ali, Assistant Director (Hospital-1) said. Shafiur Rahman and research officer. Didarul Islam.
The accused have been accused of converting an unlicensed Regent Hospital into a 'Dedicated Covid Hospital', signing a memorandum of understanding and testing samples of 3,939 Covid patients free of cost at the lab of government institution Nipsom.
The chargesheet said, “From there, one crore 36 lakh 6 thousand 500 rupees has been received as three and a half thousand rupees per patient for illegal rewards.
"Besides, Regent Hospital's Mirpur and Uttara branches have raised a monthly demand of Tk 1.96 crore for allocating food expenses to doctors, nurses, wardboys and other officials."
The accused have been charged under Section 409/420/109 of the Penal Code and Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 for embezzling a total of Tk 3,34,8,500.
On September 23 last year, the ACC Deputy District Director Dhaka-1 filed the case accusing five people. Farid Ahmed Patwari.
Later, the ACC gave the responsibility of investigation to the plaintiff Farid Ahmed. After a long year of investigation into the case, the commission approved the chargesheet on September 20.
Although Abul Kalam Azad was not named in the case, he was named as an accused in the chargesheet.