A writ petition has been filed with the High Court seeking its directives to refund Tk 77 crore of the customers of controversial e-commerce platform ‘E-orange’.
Barrister M Abdul Qayyum, a lawyer of the Supreme Court, filed the writ petition on Sunday (April 3) on behalf of 500 customers of the e-commerce company.
The E-orange customers through the writ petition also demanded a proper investigation into the embezzlement case. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Bangladesh Bank and other related parties were made respondents to the writ petition. The writ petition is expected to be heard today (Monday) at the High Court bench led by Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukdar, said Barrister M Abdul Qayyum.
Earlier, the affected customers of the e-commerce platform had sought government intervention to get their ordered goods or refunds. They had requested the commerce ministry to take necessary steps in this regard.
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Unlike other family businesses, E-orange experienced a ‘robust growth’ in sales in only two years since its inception in 2019.
However, the customers of the company in 2020 started accusing it of failing to deliver on time even after receiving payments.
It was reported that the owner of E-orange Sonia Mehzabin, sister of Banani police inspector (investigation) Sheikh Sohel Rana, her husband Masukur Rahman and Sohel’s so-called wife Naznin Nahar Bithi, another owner of the company, all have gobbled up around Tk 1,100 crore in advance money without delivering products purchased to customers.
Analysing the data of the company’s bank accounts till July 20 in 2021, it was found that over Tk 620.67 crore was deposited to one of City Bank accounts of E-orange and a little over Tk 663 crore was later transferred to motorcycle vendors. The account now has a deposit of around Tk 22 lakh.
Till June 30 in 2021, over Tk 391 crore was deposited to its Brac Bank account and more than Tk 388 crore was later withdrawn from the account. At present, there is only around Tk 3 crore in the account.
According to the investigation report, Tk 349 crore was withdrawn from two bank accounts of E-orange. But there is no clue where the money has gone. It is suspected that the money has been laundered. Several agencies have launched investigation into it.