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17 MPs ignored electoral laws

Didn't submit income tax returns while filing application for candidacy in 2008 polls

Shakhawat Liton
Seventeen lawmakers including a minister, a state minister and a whip had not submitted copies of income tax returns with their applications for candidacy in the last election, ignoring the electoral laws.
Citing a Representation of the People Order provision. EC Secretariat officials said the returning officers should have rejected those applications.
But instead, they allowed the 17 lawmakers --15 belonging to ruling Awami League and two to Jatiya Party- -to contest the polls.
The ROs concerned did it despite the Election Commission's repeated instructions to scrutinise all applications, affidavits and statements in conformity with the electoral laws.
Disclosing the information to The Daily Star of late, the EC officials said they wonder how the officers could okay the candidacy when they were supposed to disqualify the applicants for not complying with the RPO provision.
Besides the documents submitted by the 17, the EC Secretariat is looking into statements of another 22 MPs as well. Of the 22, some did not pay taxes and some did not give any information regarding their tax records.
According to article 44AA of the RPO, it is mandatory for a parliamentary polls candidate to submit statements of probable sources of funds for election expenses and also of assets and liabilities, annual income and expenditure, and copies of tax returns if he is an income tax assessee.
If a lawmaker is found to have breached fhe electoral laws and rules during the election, the High Court may declare his election null and void.
All 17 lawmakers had tax certificates tagged with their applications, but none submitted copies of income tax returns.
"This is to certify that (name of the minister) is a registered assessee of Taxes Circle 21 under Taxes Zone 02, Dhaka. He has submitted the return for the assessment year 2008-2009 under universal self-assessment procedure & tax paid on the basis of return income.” reads the income tax certificate turned in by the minister inquestion. The EC had instructed the ROs to scrutinise the affidavits submitted along with the applications properly.
In a circular issued on November 9, 2008, it said, “An application for candidacy shall be turned down if it is found missing any required documents or containing fake information."
The same circular asked the ROs to send soft copies of all the documents to tire EC.
The information extracted from the soft copies was posted on the commission's website before the December 29 election.
Recently, while examining the documents in detail, the EC officials found 39 lawmakers with anomalies in the statements they furnished.
National Board of Revenue has taken a list of those law-makers from the EC Secretariat, said EC sources.
Besides, the EC Secretariat has asked the ROs and district election officials concerned to examine the original documents submitted by the 39.
Requesting anonymity, a senior EC official said all the documents are preserved at the offices of ROs, who are also deputy commissioners, and it may take a few days to complete the scrutiny.
"Once we receive the information from the field level, we will place the issue before the commission," he added.