TBM Report
A special anti-corruption court in Dhaka has sentenced H M Rashed Sarker, a junior licensing inspector of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB), to five years of rigorous imprisonment for accepting a bribe of BDT 100,000 from a commercial pilot aspirant. Concurrently, the court imposed a financial penalty of BDT 100,000, failing which the convict must serve an additional six months in jail. Judge Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun of the Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-5 delivered the verdict on Thursday (July 9), immediately canceling the convict’s bail and issuing a comprehensive custody warrant to transfer him to central prison facilities.
In a landmark asset forfeiture ruling, the special court ordered the immediate restitution of the seized BDT 100,000 to the original complainant. Furthermore, the judicial decree directed state authorities to confiscate the convict’s seized personal digital infrastructure—including his smartphones, laptops, iPads, and active credit cards—forfeiting them to the state treasury. While public prosecutor Zahirul Islam expressed structural satisfaction with the judicial outcome, the defense counsels formally stated their intentions to lodge an institutional appeal before the High Court Division, challenging the legality of the conviction.
The prosecution matrix reveals that the victim, Rakib Hasan, successfully cleared the initial ‘Air Law’ phase of the Commercial Pilot License (CPL) examinations in 2018. He subsequently filed a formal application on September 2, 2019, to sit for the advanced ‘Composite’ qualification phase. Sarker, utilizing his administrative backend access over the online portal, intentionally rejected Hasan’s application twice. He subsequently demanded a direct illicit gratification of BDT 100,000 as a prerequisite to clear the bureaucratic hurdles and reinstate the pilot’s examination eligibility.
Following an undercover intelligence tip-off, a specialized enforcement unit of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) executed a targeted sting operation on December 6, 2019, apprehending Sarker red-handed inside a restaurant in Uttara while receiving the marked bribe currency notes. ACC Assistant Director Tahsin Mosabil Haq acted as the primary complainant in registering the formal FIR. Following rigorous evidentiary processing, the formal charge sheet was submitted on June 6, 2022, and the trial commenced on March 6, 2023. The final judicial verdict was formulated after the cross-examination of 23 crucial state witnesses out of 24 listed deponents, solidifying a critical precedent against institutional corruption within Bangladesh’s civil aviation ecosystem.
, to five years of rigorous imprisonment for accepting a bribe of BDT 100,000 from a commercial pilot aspirant. Concurrently, the court imposed a financial penalty of BDT 100,000, failing which the convict must serve an additional six months in jail. Judge Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun of the Dhaka Special Judge's Court-5 delivered the verdict on Thursday (July 9), immediately canceling the convict’s bail and issuing a comprehensive custody warrant to transfer him to central prison facilities.){kind=link}