The High Court has constituted a 10-member board to manage the People’s Leasing and Financial Services (PLFS) Limited, a non-banking financial institution that became a hot topic for discussion following PK Halder’s financial scam.
The government, however, had directed the central bank to liquidate the PLFS due to decay in its financial health in the last several years. The company has been saved from the liquidation as the High Court decided that the company must be restructured, not liquidated.
The High Court on Tuesday finally constituted a 10-member board to manage People’s Leasing and Financial Services Limited. The HC bench of Justice Mohammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar disclosed the names of the board members in its written order.
As per the HC’s decision, Barrister Kamal Ul Alam, a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, has become chairman of the board formed to revive the PLFS.
The other members of the board are former Secretary Anwarul Islam Shikder, District and Sessions Judge (Retd) Hasan Shahed Ferdous, former Managing Director of Pubali Bank Ltd. Abdul Halim Chowdhury, Brigadier (Retd) Kazi Tawfiqul Islam, Nur-e-Khoda Abdul Mobin FCA and Maula Mohammad. The depositors’ representative of the company Dr Nasheed Kamal, chairman of the finance department of North South University Dr Nurul Kabir and former managing director of Ansar VDP Development Bank Mohammad Jalaluddin were also kept on the board.
The newly appointed chairman of the board was directed to convene the first meeting. He was also asked to prepare an audit report and present the directions of the court to the board members and determine all the functions. The court also issued a separate direction on board members and depositors.
Earlier on June 28, the High Court decided to revive the company instead of winding it up. The HC bench passed the order after holding a hearing on a petition filed by 201 depositors of the PLFS for revival or restructuring of the institution.
In that verbal order, the court had said that it would be known in a written order who will be on the board. Following this, the court on July 13 announced the names of the board members.
The depositors filed the petition through their lawyer Shamim Ahmed Mehedi with the High Court seeking its directive to revive or reconstruct the institution.
The finance ministry on June 26 in 2019 allowed the Bangladesh Bank to go for liquidation of the PLFS due to its failure in repaying depositors’ money following massive irregularities in loan disbursement.
It was the first liquidation process in Bangladesh’s financial sector in line with the Financial Institutions Act, 1993.
Prashanta Kumar Halder, who is known as PK Halder, a former managing director of Reliance Finance and NRB Global Bank, swindled more than Tk 3,500 crore from four non-bank financial institutions (NBFI), including PLFS. Some former directors of the NBFI were also involved in the scam.
