A bill allowing a public servant to marry or promise to marry a foreign national with the permission of the President was placed in parliament yesterday.
Public Administration Minister Syed Ashraful Islam tabled the bill, dubbed The Public Servants (Marriage with Foreign Nationals) Bill 2015, and sent it to the parliamentary standing committee for scrutiny.
If a public servant gets married without the president’s approval, he or she will be removed from service, the proposal says.
The bill proposes that a public servant shall not marry or promise to marry a foreign national except with permission granted by the president.
The president may, on an application made in this behalf, grant a public servant permission to marry or promise to marry a foreign national, the proposal says.
The bill will replace the Servants (Marriage with Foreign Nationals) Ordinance-1976. As the ordinance was adopted under military rule, and it has an obligation to be translated into Bangla, the proposed bill was placed in the parliament, the minister said.
Under the 1976 ordinance, government employees could marry foreign nationals with the president’s permission, but foreign ministry officials were barred from marrying foreigners.
According to the proposal, marriage means entering into a matrimonial relationship in accordance with any law for the time being in force or any religious rites or ceremonies, and its grammatical variations and cognate expressions shall be construed accordingly.