ACC must take responsibility of Jaha Alam: HC

The High Court today said that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) must take the responsibility for not securing bail for Jaha Alam, who wrongly suffered in jail for three years due to an identity mess-up.

The ACC should have taken initiatives to secure bail for Jaha Alam when it came to know that he is innocent, the HC in an observation said. “The ACC must take this responsibility,” it said.

The bench of Justice FRM Nazmul Ahasan and Justice KM Kamrul Kader came up with the observation while hearing a rule issued by the court regarding acquittal of Jaha Alam of the cases in which he was not an accused.

The court directed the ACC to submit all documents regarding the loan scam cases filed against Jaha Alam and others before this court and fixed April 10 for further hearing on this issue.

On February 4, Alam was released from Kashimpur High Security Jail after the HC exonerated him from 26 corruption cases, in which he was in jail instead of the real accused, Abu Salek.

Police arrested Jaha Alam in 2016.

On January 28 this year, the HC summoned the ACC officials concerned to appear before it on February 4 to give their explanations over the case.

The court passed the order on a suo moto move after Bangla daily ProthomAlo on that day published a report headlined “Wrong accused in jail in 33 cases: Sir, I am JahaAlam, not Salek.”

Supreme Court lawyer Amit Das Gupta placed the news report before the HC for necessary orders in this regard.

The court also issued a rule asking the authorities to explain why JahaAlam should not be acquitted of the cases in which he was not an accused.

After the media reported that JahaAlam was wrongly accused, the ACC launched an investigation.

The anti-graft body found JahaAlam's claim to be true.