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Moudud keeps mum on HC judge's scam No plan to scrap Special Powers Act

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Law Minister Moudud Ahmed yesterday declined to comment on the High Court judge who is accused of corruption, saying, "The matter is now being handled by the Supreme Judicial Council."
Asked to comment on the appointment of the 'controversial judge' a few months ago despite fully knowing that an allegation of Bar Association fund embezzlement
still dogged him, the eloquent minister kept a silence at a press conference.
If such an allegation by a person no other than the Bar Association chief against a High Court judge lowered the image of the highest judiciary?
"We will not compromise the image of the High Court."
In a break with a key election plank of Bangladesh Nationalist
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Party, the four-party alliance leader, Moudud said the government presently had no plan on its mind to scrap or amend the black Special Powers Act, 1974.
"But we have stopped abusing the act," the minister said defending the government at the press conference, "Achievements of the Law Ministry in the Last Two Years".
He sidestepped another question on whether the government was reneging on the vital poll pledge, saying: "Our government still has three years to complete its term. If we don't do it by then, you can raise the question."
Moudud said steps were taken to stop abuse of Section-54 of the Criminal Procedure Code that gives authority to police to arrest anyone on suspicion.
Such a law exists everywhere in the world, he said.
He claimed that the government made significant progress in separation of the judiciary, extending legal aid, establishing an independent anticorruption commission, human rights commission, the office of the ombudsman and sessions judge's courts in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and in reforming government attorney service and the judiciary.
However, none of the issues, except for the setting up of sessions judges courts in the CHT, has taken complete shape.
Moudud pointed out that the government enacted 78 laws in the last two years, including the Acid Crime Control Act, the Speedy Trial Act,
Speedy Trial Tribunal and Money LaunderingAct.
"The law ministry is doing whatever necessary to ensure speedy and lowcost trial," he said.
Replying to a question on footdragging on setting up the anticorruption commission, Moudud said the ministry would hold a roundtable to seek expert opinions on October 23.
The act seeking to establish the commission will be placed in the next session of the Jatiya Sangsad for passage after careful scrutiny by a parliamentary committee in view of experts' comments.
In his written statement, Moudud said after passage of the Speedy Trial Act in April last year, 2,416 cases were disposed of and 2,917 people punished.
In last five months, the speedy trial tribunals ruled on 220 cases of 362 and awarded death sentence to 50 people.
He listed some sensational cases including Rubel, Nowshin, Habib Mondol, Shipu, Principal Gopal Krishna Muhuri, Sihab, Jibran, Tayebi and Gandaria and Mohammadpur double-murder and a few rape cases.
Moudud said renovation and expansion of a few jails were going on and the number of condemned cells would beincreased.
Some 70,000 prisoners are now in jails against the capacity of 26,500, he added.
State Minister for Law Barrister Shahjahan Omar attended the press conference at the ministry, among others.