Dhaka, Oct 22 —A parliamentary watchdog has suggested scrapping a clause from the Anticorruption Commission (Amendment) Bill that binds the organisation to take the government's permission before investigating graft charges against any government official.
After a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry, its chief Suranjit Sengupta on Saturday told reporters that a committee delegation that visited several countries made the suggestion to the committee in its report.
The delegation submitted a five-point recommendation following its Sep 10-24 visit to Indonesia, South Korea and Australia where exchanging views with anticorruption organisations of those countries to bring amendment to the current ACC law of Bangladesh.
Suranjit said, "The organisations working on those countries enjoy financial and administrative independence. There is no clause binding them to seek permission to conduct inquiry, investigation or prosecution against any government official's graft charges."
"The organisations have their own manpower for these jobs. The delegation submitted the report to the committee following their experiences to those anticorruption agencies they visited."
He said, "The [ACC] has been working since 1947 under the government as the Bureau of Anti Corruption. But now it's an independent statutory body."
"We've taken this kind of initiative to modernise the commission through removing the confusions from the current law."
The revised Anticorruption Commission (Amendment) Bill with 10 amendment proposals was placed in parliament on Feb 28 by agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury and the standing committee was given two weeks for scrutiny.
Section 32 (Ka) of the bill proposes that permission of the government is a must for lodging cases against any judge, magistrate or government officials.
The 2007-8 interim government strengthened the ACC authority with a slight amendment to the act. The commission then filed cases against many political leaders, including the Awami League and BNP heads.
Following disagreement over the provision between standing committee members at a meeting on June 26, the committee recommended taking decision after the delegation makes its suggestion following visiting and exchanging views with the anticorruption organisations of other countries.
After briefly discussing the delegation report on Saturday's meeting, the committee decided to send the report's copies to the finance minister, agriculture minister, standing committee chief on public accounts, Cabinet Division secretary and public administration secretary.
Suranjit said, "There is a huge difference between the bill and the committee's thoughts. We'll take opinions from finance and agriculture ministers and public accounts committee chief again. I hope the gap between two sides will be narrow."
The amended bill will be tabled in parliament as early as possible, he added.
CONTEMPT OF COURT BILL
Suranjit said, "The meeting also discussed the Contempt of Court Bill-2011. The representatives of the Cabinet Division, public administration ministry and law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry expressed their opinions on the issue."
A three-member sub-committee was formed to scrutinise the bill. Standing committee member Mohammad Fazle Rabbi Mia was made the sub-committee convenor.
The other members of the sub-committee are Nurul Islam Sujon and Sheikh Fazle Nur Tapas.
news from:bdnews24.com
No comments:
Post a Comment