The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Transparency International, Bangladesh, to submit the report of its household survey which found the judiciary to be the most corrupt among the service sectors in the country followed by the law enforcement agencies and the land administration.
In a letter to the TIB’s executive director Iftekharuzzaman, the deputy registrar 1 of the Supreme Court, Badrul Alam Bhuiyan, said that the Supreme Court would take effective steps after it received the relevant documents of the survey conducted by the TIB.
Iftekharuzzaman told New Age that he had received the letter and would send the survey report along with relevant documents to the Supreme Court today.
Earlier in the morning, the chief justice, ABM Khairul Haque, called an emergency meeting at his Hare Road residence in the capital where two Appellate Division judges and 10 senior most judges of the High Court were present, said sources in the registrar office. The meeting decided to seek the TIB report and take steps in this regard.
On Monday, Bangladesh Judicial Service Association, a platform for the subordinate court judges, alleged that the TIB had dubbed Bangladesh’s judiciary as the most corrupt institution with an ‘ulterior motive’.
The TIB’s report described lawyers, mohrars and court employees as part of the judiciary but according to the constitution judges of the Supreme Court and members of Bangladesh Judicial Service comprised the judiciary,’ the association said in a statement.
It said that according to the graft watchdog’s household survey, 59.6 per cent of the respondents had to bribe police but none said they had to offer bribe to a judge.
The TIB had come up with its findings at a discussion at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies on December 23. The TIB prepared the report on the basis of a household survey it conducted between June 2009 and May 2010.
According to the household survey 2010, about 88 per cent of people who went for service from the judiciary were somehow made victim of corruption. Some 79.7 per cent of the people who approached law enforcement agencies and 71.2 per cent who went to land administration became victims of corruption.
The TIB report also said that corruption in the judiciary had increased by 40.3 per cent over the last three years. A survey conducted in 2007 had found 47.7 per cent corruption in the judiciary.
A Comilla court issued warrants for the arrest of TIB trust chairman M Hafizuddin Khan, executive director Iftekharuzzaman and senior research fellow Wahid Alam in connection with a case filed against them on charge of maligning the judiciary and legal practitioners by its household survey report. The court, however, rejected the case in the evening as the plaintiff failed to submit their addresses properly.
Two Chittagong courts, however, summoned them in connection with defamation cases filed on the same day.
