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Free anti-graft body bill passed after change

Govt approval not needed to prosecute public servants

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The Jatiya Sangsad last night passed the much-talked-about Anticorruption Commission Bill, 2004, in an amended form, making way for institution of an independent body to fight graft.
A last-minute amendment to the bill took the yet-to-be-formed independent anti-corruption commission out of government control
unlike its predecessor the Bureau of Anti-corruption (Bac).
Now, the commission would not require government approval beforehand to launch a probe and prosecute a public servant for graft charges.
The House passed the bill, introduced on July 10 last year, amid a continuous parliament boycott by the main opposition Awami League
and the second largest opposition, Jatiya Party (Ershad). The lone opposition lawmaker present at the time -- Kader Siddiqui of Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Janata League -- walked out in protest at the rejection of his amendment proposals on the bill.
"After getting home, I'll ponder on whether to rejoin the House," said Kader after staging the walkout at 8:45pm, barely half an hour before
the passage.
The House rejected several other amendments brought by Kader and independent lawmaker MM Shahin. It also turned down by voice vote Kader's proposal for sending the bill to the search committee and eliciting public opinions on it.
should have its own unit to prosecute instead of taking recourse to public prosecutors.
Under the framework of the law, the proposed commission will have three commissioners, who would be picked for a four-year term by the president from a six-member panel chosen by the search committee.
The five-member search committee will have a judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court as its chairman and a judge of the High Court Division, the chairman of the Public Service Commission, the comptroller and auditor general and the last retired cabinet secretary as its members.
Initially, the bill had kept the provision of a six-member search committee with the finance and law ministers on it. Later, the provision was dropped.
The commission, which will enjoy financial autonomy like the Supreme Court and the Jatiya Sangsad, will assign its officials to probe allegations of corruption. Its commissioners will also have the authority to investigate any alleged corruption. Cases under the law would be tackled in special judge's courts.
The investigation officers of the commission will enjoy the authority of an officer-in-charge of a police station while investigating cases.
The bill said people with 20 years of experience in law, education, administration, judiciary or armed forces would be eligible for the posts of commissioner.
Bac will cease to exist with the formation of the anti-graft commission, which also takes over the charge of investigations pending with the former.
The Anti-Corruption Act, 1957 will also be abolished.
The BNP-led coalition government fulfilled one of its election pledges by passing the bill at a time when Bangladesh has been rated as the most corrupt country in the world for the third consecutive year by London-based Transparency International, a global corruption watchdog.
Although the bill, piloted by Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Moudud Ahmed, went through several layers of scrutiny and the relevant parliamentary standing committee made many changes to it, it had the provision of obtaining approval from the government, prompting the civil society, media and development partners to doubt the commission's independence.
Chairman of the parliamentary standing body and BNP lawmaker Khandaker Mahbub Uddin Ahmad, who submitted the crucial amendment proposal in the last hours, suggested ceasing the application of sub-sections 5 and 6 of Section 6 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1958.
He argued an independent antigraft body should not require government nod to probe graft charges against a state official and