Dhaka: Law Minister Anisul Huq on Sunday said Chief Justice SK Sinha is destined to face Anti- Corruption Commission (ACC) investigations as 11 ‘scheduled allegations’ of graft and moral lapses were surfaced against him with an overnight Supreme Court statement.

‘Nobody is above the law,’ he told a crowded press conference at his office.

Anisul Huq said the statutory Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) was likely to investigate the allegations as ‘almost all of the allegations against him fall under the ACC purview while ‘it is the prerogative of the President to take (the subsequent) actions if the charges are proved’.

The law minister’s comments came a day after the Supreme Court issued a statement revealing that President Abdul Hamid last week conveyed the apex court judges about the 11 grave charges against Sinha who left home for Australia on Friday evening making a media statement.

During the departure Sinha said he was leaving home ‘temporarily’ but

‘I am not sick, I am well (and) I am not fleeing either’.

‘What he (Sinha) said (ahead of his departure) is a lie . . . his statement about his health dumfounded me,’ Huq said reading out Sinha’s letter to the president conveying him about his sickness and willingness to go abroad.

Asked if Sinha could resume office on return home after the one-month leave, Huq answered in the negative saying, ‘he does not have the scope to resume office until the disposal of the allegations’.

Huq, however, said since the Chief Justice’s office is an ‘institution’ nothing would be done in haste and all steps would be taken in adherence to the law of the land.

The Supreme Court statement on Saturday said the apex Appellate Division judges earlier this month decided not to sit in the bench with Sinha over allegations of ‘grave’ graft and moral lapses, brought to their notice by President Abdul Hamid.

The Supreme Court issued the statement as Sinha left home on the previous evening issuing a media statement saying he was leaving ‘temporarily’ amid ‘embarrassment’, escalating speculations over his row with the government so far visibly over a verdict.

‘This written statement (of Sinha) is misleading,’ read the Supreme Court statement signed by its Registrar General Syed Aminul Islam.

It said President Hamid on September 30, invited all the five apex court judges to Bangabhaban presidential palace barring the chief justice and held a log discussion and handed over to them the evidences of 11 specific allegations against Sinha.