Staff Correspondent

The Anticorruption Commission Monday appealed to a Dhaka court seeking to exempt former food minister Motia Chowdhury and eight others from corruption charges in a 2002 case.

ACC assistant director Moniruzzaman Khan submitted a final report to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court for Dhaka and sought exemption for them.

In the report, investigating officer Moniruzzaman Khan said the allegations against the accused could not be proved. Acting water resources secretary Mohammad Ayub Miah, the then deputy secretary of the food ministry, had also been named as one of the accused in the case.

The court did not pass any order on the appeal Monday. The now-defunct Bureau of Anticorruption filed the case against the nine people, mostly bureaucrats, with Ramna Police Station on April 22, 2002.

In case details, Bureau of Anticorruption official Syed Tahsinul Haque had alleged that the government counted Tk 13.30 crore in loss as the accused misused powers to import rice from India in 1998 and 1999 for their personal interests.

In another development, the ACC Monday submitted a chargesheet against former Sonali Bank managing director Muhammad Taimilur Rahman and wife Shamima Begum in a case filed for submitting a false wealth statement.

ACC assistant director SM Monzur Ahmed filed the case with Ramna Police Station on Dec 11 last year.

According to the chargesheet, the couple had earned property worth Tk 1.18 crore through undisclosed sources and lied to the ACC.