M Moneeruzzaman
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Thursday claimed that it had spent Tk 7,74,41,566 to pay retainers to 51 lawyers engaged to deal with more than 500 graft cases filed by it in the last two years. Some newspapers have alleged that it paid the lawyers more than Tk 14 crore to punish 156 corruption suspects.
‘Tk 5,11,59,866 was spent for paying the lawyers between June 2007 and June 2008 and Tk 2,62,81,700 was spent between June 2008 and January 2009,’ the ACC’s spokesman, Hanif Iqbal, told reporters at a briefing on Thursday.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina questioned the justification of the payment of such a large amount to lawyers and said the government would look into the issue.
Hasina, while talking to United Nations assistant secretary-general Ajay Chhiber on Tuesday, said, ‘The government needs to ensure that no one got involved in corruption in trying to fight others’ graft.’
‘The commission spent the money legally as the law has given it the freedom of expenditure,’ Hanif said. ‘There is no reason to create controversy on this issue.’
In reply to a query that the ACC had paid lawyers fees that were more than the chief justice’s salary, Hanif said, ‘Lawyers’ appointment were on a contractual basis, and professional fees should not be compared to government salaries.’
Hanif said that the ACC had engaged 51 lawyers — 10 as members of its legal advisory council, four as senior public prosecutors, 22 as special public prosecutors, one as assistant public prosecutor, seven for dealing with writ petition cases, four as advocates on record and three as retained lawyers.
On January 29 the ACC cancelled the appointments of 43 prosecutors, reducing the number of prosecutors to 8, and said that it had decided to continue with the appointment of eight prosecutors to deal with the cases in the five special judge’s courts in Dhaka and the Dhaka metropolitan special judge’s court.
Regarding the cases pending with the High Court and the Appellate Division, Hanif said, ‘The commission from now on will engage lawyers on the basis of payment for disposal of each pending case.’
In April 2007, the ACC appointed lawyers as prosecutors on a temporary basis. It also paid monthly honorariums of Tk 75,000 to Tk 1,00,000 to each of them. The prosecutors also received a handsome amount for each hearing in the corruption cases pending either in the Supreme Court or trial court.
Courtesy of www.newagebd.com
