The High Court on Tuesday asked the governor of Bangladesh Bank and the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission to hold probes into the allegations of corruption and money laundering by the National Bank Limited’s board of directors using international credit cards.

The court asked the ACC chairman, the governor, the head of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, and the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department to submit separate compliance reports to the court on January 15, 2023.

The bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat issued the directive after hearing a writ petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer Chowdhury Hasan Muhammad Abdullah, who is also a shareholder of the National Bank.

The court also asked the respondents to explain in four weeks why they should not be directed to take action against the managing director of the National Bank, Ron Haque Sikder, and the bank’s board of directors for their alleged involvement in corruption and money laundering through using credit cards.

Petitioner’s lawyer Munsurul Hoque Chowdhury told the court that several newspapers, referring to the Bangladesh Bank’s special inspection, published reports stating that the board of directors and their family members, using 11 credit cards issued by the bank’s managing director Ron Haque, laundered money amounting to Tk 1,413,871,249 in the period between 2017 and 2021.