A legal notice was served on Saturday to the authorities concerned seeking steps within 24 hours for scrapping the new provision incorporated in the Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2013 making it mandatory to take prior government permission to file corruption cases against public servants.Yunus Ali Akand, a Supreme Court lawyer, sent the notice to the Speaker of Jatiya Sangsad, the Law Secretary, the Cabinet Secretary, the PMO Secretary and the ACC chairman. The notice said a writ petition will be filed with the High Court if the new provision incorporated in the ACC Act is not scraped by the stipulated time.
The ‘ACC (Amendment) Bill 2013’, was passed in parliament on November 10 amid widespread criticisms. The amendment included a new provision in the section 32 of the ACC Act 2004 under which the Commission must follow the Rule 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) against a judge, a magistrate or a civil servant.
According to the Rule 197 of the CrPC, when any person who is a judge within the meaning of section 19 of the Penal Code, or when any magistrate, or when any public servant who is not removable from his office save by or with the sanction of the government, is accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty, no court shall take cognisance of such offence except with the prior government sanction.
In the Anti Corruption Commission Act 2004, the ACC was empowered to give prior approval for filing such a case. In many countries of the world public servants remain involved in corruption. So, it is necessary to ensure more accountability in their work, the notice said.
Ali Akand said government officials are involved in corruption in all spheres of the administration. Such prior approval was needed when there was Anti-Corruption Bureau in the country and the ACC was established to get rid of this situation, he said. – UNB
