Bangladesh News

Corruption suspects are getting released on the High Court (HC) bail and cases against them are being stayed because of loopholes in the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) laws and rules, observed a few Supreme Court (SC) lawyers.

They said these loopholes constitute three grounds on which the HC mostly grants bail to accused persons and stays proceedings against them.

One is the ACC officials’ failure to submit enquiry reports within 30 days of being tasked with gathering information about a corruption suspect and the investigation officers’ failure to submit reports within 60 days of filing of the cases as per the rules.

The two other grounds are ACC’s not issuing gazette notifications on appointing investigation officers and not serving notices for submitting wealth statements upon women and children charged with aiding and abetting the principal accused in committing corruption.

The SC lawyers said it is possible to complete the trials of corruption offences on the basis of wealth statements of the accused and the investigation reports but these ambiguities in the ACC rules and laws prevent the ACC to reach its goal of the anti-corruption drive.

Stressing the need for amendments to these laws and rules, they said the laws and rules should be made vibrant, concise and transparent for fair and speedy trials of corruption cases.

During the hearing of a case, an HC bench also recently told an ACC counsel that the commission’s laws and rules should be changed.

A few SC lawyers, meanwhile, said amending or changing the ACC laws and rules would create further complexities and the government and ACC may face difficulties in dealing with graft cases.

Sources said the HC in the last two months stayed proceedings of at least 60 graft cases and granted bail to about 35 persons.

Criminal law expert Dr Shahdeen Malik said the ACC laws or rules can be scrutinised or amended, but the process of scrutinising any law is a serious and time-consuming matter.

“Most of the laws and rules have been formulated and brought into force hurriedly which has created all these problems for the government. Any hasty change in the ACC rules is more likely to compound the difficulties than make it useful,” he said.

“If any move is made to amend the rules or law, a number of errors can appear. For an example, the government already had to amend the Emergency Power Rules for seven or eight times as more errors came up while correcting one error,” he added.

Advocate M Enayetur Rahim said the BNP-led four party alliance government enacted the Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2004 with some faulty and contradictory provisions so that leaders of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami who committed serious corruptions could be released.

“The provisions for submitting the enquiry report within 30 days of assigning the ACC official and the investigation report within 60 days of filing of the case are unnecessary for the trial,” he said.

There is also no necessity of the provisions for issuing gazette notifications for appointing investigation officers and issuing wealth statement notices upon women and children charged with abetting and aiding the principal accused, he said.

Advocate Enayet said these provisions should be repealed or amended in order to make the law dynamic and concise for fair and speedy trial of corruption suspects.

“The BNP and Jamaat men had fear of being charged with corruption cases since they had looted and embezzled state money by abusing power while in the government. They enacted this faulty law so that they can get release from the corruption charges through the complexities of the law,” he said.

Advocate SM Rezaul Karim said according to the ACC law, its officials have to take approval from the commission for filing any graft case. ACC rules also say that anybody can file graft cases against any corrupt person with the police station concerned but the investigations will have to be conducted by ACC officials. “These provisions of the ACC rules are contradictory,” he said.

There is a provision for submitting investigation reports within 60 days after filing of the cases but the ACC rules do not clarify what the consequences will be if the investigation report is not submitted within that period.

“Corruption suspects have been taking advantage of this provision and getting release from the High Court in the cases filed against them,” he said, adding that there is also no specific procedure for permitting the ACC official concerned to file graft cases.

ACC counsel advocate Khurshid Alam Khan, however, said there is no need for amending the ACC rules or laws as those are good enough to complete the trials of corruption offences.

“The rules of the ACC laws are related to each other. If those are amended or any of them is repealed, complexities will arise in the trial process,” he said.