& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Ratification of Constitution

BNP, 5 other parties to get time till Jan 24

Bill seeks amendment to RPO

Staff Correspondent
The main opposition BNP and five other political parties will have to submit their ratified constitutions to the Election Commission by January 24 next year to retain their registration with the EC as per a provision of a new bill placed in parliament yesterday.
Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shafique Ahmed placed the bill, set to be passed soon, seeking amendment to the Representation of People Order for extending the timeframe by another six months for submission of ratified constitutions of political parties to the commission.
According to the existing provisions of the RPO, political parties were supposed to ratify the provisional changes in their constitutions by holding councils and submit the ratified charters to the EC by July 24 this year.
Many political parties including Awami League, Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e-Islami have complied with the provisions.
But BNP and five other parties failed to meet the provisions of ratifying the provisional changes within six months since the first sitting of the ninth parliamen t that began on January 25.
In order to give them six more months to finish the task, the law minister placed the bill
SEE PAGE 5 COL 1 FROM PAGE 16
with the provision saying if any political party fails to meet the deadline its registration with the EC will be cancelled.
All 39 registered political parties except one brought provisional changes to their constitutions to meet the registration criteria before the December 29 parliamentary election and promised to ratify the changes within six months from the first sitting of the ninth parliament.
Failing to meet the deadline, BNP on July 6 in an application to the EC sought six months' additional time to ratify the provisional changes in its constitution.
The bill was sent to the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry for scrutiny and submitting its report to the House.
MOBILE COURT BILL PASSED
The House passed a bill ratifying the mobile court ordinance for continuation of the executive magistrates' authority to take cognisance of offences and hold trial of those including electoral offences.
The lawmakers voted for passage of the bill after Home Minister Sahara Khatun piloted it in parliament.
But empowerment of executive magistrates to hold trials of electoral offences runs counter to a Supreme Court opinion.
Executive magistrates lost judicial power to try people for offences following separation of the judiciary from the executive during the tenure of the last caretaker government.
In the face of strong demand from administration cadres, the then caretaker government, however, promulgated an ordinance empowering executive magistrates to run mobile courts to maintain law and order.
The ordinance, which ceased to have effect in late February for not being ratified in parliament within the stipulated time frame, allowed executive magistrates only to fine individuals for an offence.
In line with the present government s decision, President Zillur Rahman promulgated the ordinance on July 23, 2009 empowering executive magistrates to run mobile courts to maintain law and order and try people for electoral offences.
Before the ninth parliamentary election, the EC moved to engage executive magistrates to hold trial of electoral offences under the then mobile court ordinance.
But the SC's general administrative committee, headed by the chief justice, unanimously decided in December that only experienced judicial magistrates should be engaged in administering justice in cases filed in connection with electoral offences.
"As jurisdictions of the judicial and executive magistrates are clearly delineated, the latter need not be entrusted with the authority of the former." the SC noted in response to a letter of the EC following a controversy whether the judicial or executive magistrates should be engaged in trying electoral offences.
Since the SC did not approve empowering executive magistrates, also officials of the admin cadres, to hold trials of cases filed in connection with electoral offences, the EC finally decided to engage judicial magistrates in the December 29 parliamentary polls.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary standing committee on LGRD and Cooperatives Ministry yesterday placed a report on scrutiny of the Local Government (Union Parishad) Bill and recommended that the House pass the bill.