A Dhaka court yesterday took cognisance of the charges against former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and 10 others for allegedly misappropriating and laundering about Tk 4 crore from the Farmers Bank in 2016.

After accepting the charges, Judge KM Emrul Kayesh of the Senior Special Judge’s Court of Dhaka issued arrest warrants against all the accused as they have been shown “fugitives” in the charge-sheets.

The court also directed police to submit the reports on execution of arrest warrants, issued on December 3 last year, by January 22.

On December 10, the Anti-Corruption Commission pressed charges against Sinha and 10 others in this regard.

The other accused are: the bank’s former managing director AKM Shamim, Senior Executive Vice-President and former head of Credit Division Gazi Salahuddin, First Vice-President of Credit Division Swapan Kumar Roy, First Vice-President Shafiuddin Askary, former chairman of the bank’s audit committee Mahbubul Haque Chisty and Vice-President Lutful Haque.

One Shahjahan of Tangail’s Sreehoripur village, Ranjit Chandra Saha of the district’s Jodunathpur village, Sinha’s wife Santri Roy and nephew Niranjan Chandra Saha were also made accused.

The investigation officer of the case dropped the name of Senior Vice President and former branch manager Zia Uddin Ahmed as his involvement was not found while former chairman of the bank’s audit committee Mahbubul Haque Chisty’s name was included in the charge-sheet after his involvement was found.

The ACC in October last year said it found evidence of fraud involving transactions of Tk 4 crore borrowed with fake documents by two businessmen, Shahjahan and Niranjan, from the bank. It said the money was deposited in Justice Sinha’s account.

Later on July 10, the ACC filed a case against Sinha and 10 others for their alleged involvement with misappropriating and laundering the money.