Complaint filed by SC lawyer alleges large-scale bribery in sub-registrar transfers during interim govt, also naming Nazrul’s personal secretary

TDS Desk:

A complaint has been filed with the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), seeking an investigation into allegations of corruption involving “hundreds of crores of taka” against former interim government adviser Asif Nazrul and his personal secretary Md Masum.

Barrister M Sarwar Hossain, a Supreme Court lawyer, submitted the complaint to the ACC headquarters today, attaching a newspaper report titled “Hundreds of crores exchanged in sub-registrar transfers in eight months”.

According to the complaint, irregularities took place in the transfer of sub-registrars under the law ministry during the interim government’s tenure. It alleges that at least 282 out of 403 sub-registrars were transferred between October 2024 and April 2025, with around 200 securing postings to preferred offices through bribery.

The report claims that officials paid between Tk 50 lakh and Tk 60 lakh each to obtain favourable postings, resulting in transactions amounting to hundreds of crores of taka. In some cases, transfer orders were suspended if promised payments were not made.

It also alleges that established transfer policies were ignored, with lower-grade officials being posted to higher-grade offices in exchange for bribes, while some senior officials were transferred to lower-grade offices as punitive measures for refusing to pay.

In several instances, officials were transferred multiple times within a few months, with some receiving fresh transfer orders even before joining their new postings.

The scale of alleged irregularities prompted the law ministry to issue a warning notice on June 1 last year, stating that no financial transactions were permitted in transfers and urging officials to remain cautious of fraudulent offers. However, the complaint alleged that large-scale bribery had already taken place before the notice was issued.