Photo : Collected
The High Court has given one week time to FBCCI, the apex body of traders, to decide on 429 bogus garment factories. It has also been asked why those factories should not be declared illegal as voters of BGMEA. The High Court also asked the National Board of Revenue to assist it in verifying whether the Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) of the alleged bogus factories are correct.
A double bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zeenat Haque gave this order in a writ petition filed by garment owner Faisal Samad on Monday. Barrister Mustafizur Rahman Khan appeared for Reet.
It should be noted that a report was recently published in the media about the existence of 429 fake garment factories. The Election Appeal Board has already removed the names of 67 factories from the voter list of that election. However, a party has applied to the election tribunal of FBCCI, the top organization of traders, to exclude the names of the remaining factories from the voter list.
The FBCCI Arbitration Tribunal applied to fake voters on January 31, but it has not yet come up for hearing. In this regard, a letter was sent to the Secretary General of the Arbitration Tribunal on February 5. But even after filing the complaint, there was no hearing in this regard. Even the complainant was not informed about whether any action would be taken in this regard.
The petitioner's lawyer said that to become a member of BGMEA, the relevant factory must have a TIN. Returns should also be up to date. Some of the factories complained against may have had factories. Many of them are out of business for various reasons. He said that the names of 70 to 80 people have been removed from the factories against which complaints have been made by the tribunal formed for the selection of BGMEA.
Aggrieved, the petitioner then appealed to the FBCCI Tribunal. But there they are delaying in the disposal of appeals. That is why it has been rewritten. The Hon'ble Court gave this judgment given the writ. He said that BGMEA is the largest commercial organization in Bangladesh. The court gave this order so that those who will go to the executive committee of this organization can be elected as leaders by valid voters.
BGMEA is scheduled to hold elections on March 9. The voter list is prepared by the organization according to the election schedule. If there is any doubt about some of the people on that list, the incident comes to the fore. Earlier a party participated in the election by checking the names of 429 establishments for TIN.
They alleged that the tax payment information of 429 persons in the newly released primary voter list was not available on the National Board of Revenue (NBR) website. Recently, an objection letter with a list containing the names and Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) of those voters was served to the Chairman of the Election Appeal Board of the organization.
Messenger/Aman/Shahed
