Lodging Graft Cases: HC questions legality of some ACC rules
The High Court yesterday questioned the legality of a few sections of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) rules, that curtail police’s authority to directly record corruption cases.
The court issued a rule asking the ACC and the government to explain in four weeks why the sections concerned of the Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Rules-2019 should not be scrapped, as the sections allegedly damaged people’s right to lodge corruption case with the police station.
Secretaries to the ministries of law and home and to the parliament secretariat, chairman and secretary of the ACC, and inspector general of police have been made respondents to the rule.
The bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Khandaker Diliruzzaman came up with rule following a writ petition jointly filed by Supreme Court lawyers Subir Nandi Das and Noshin Nowal on November 13.
According to the petition, the ACC on June 20 this year issued a gazette notification amending the Anti-Corruption Commission Rules-2007.
The amended rules say a citizen can lodge a graft allegation with a police station, but police cannot record the allegation as a case.
The petitioners said the police station will accept the allegation as a general diary (GD) and will send it to ACC, and then ACC will record the GD as a case and conduct inquiry into the case, which is against relevant sections of the constitution and Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
Advocate Abdul Kaiyum Khan and Advocate Momtaz Parvin appeared for the petitioners while Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan represented ACC.
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