Staff Reporter
The third proposed amendments of the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) Act -04 has been returned to the ACC by the government for more revision if needed.
The commission recommended – four amendments ranging from seeking specialists in investigations, inclusion of ACC as a party in the lawsuits that is filed by the commission, repeal of Section 408 and conduct of investigation by the police themselves in appropriate cases.
Hanif Iqbal, Director General (DG) of ACC yesterday said this at the commission’s office. He said, on the proposed amendments ACC recommended to include ACC’s lawyer as a party of the cases filed by it. ACC had recommended repealing section 408 pertaining to Criminal breach of Trust by Private Cos. “There are so many cases filed everyday irrespective of importance which impede ACC to deal with the big ones. That is why we recommended to repeal the section”, said ACC DG.
Police often refer cases to the commission, which they can investigate themselves. In such cases ACC proposed to give police the authority to lead investigation into the cases filed by them, he said.
Hanif Iqbal said, “Sometimes ACC got cases which required specialists to conduct probe. Therefore, we proposed to give the commission the authority to include specialists from concerned authorities or organisations with their prior consent.”
The number of special judges’ court at Dhaka has already reduced to five as government has transferred five courts in other districts.
Therefore, it is now rational to reduce the number of PPs to eight for these five special judges’ courts from 18, he said.
This will be the third revision of the Anti Corruption Commission Act -04 after April 18 and November 21, 07.
ACC has proposed to the government to bring amendments on these issues by the parliament earlier. But Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina asked clarification for delayed submission of the amendments and directed to further amendments to the act if needed.
Courtesy: nation.ittefaq.com
