Police is likely to get back the authority to investigate cases of fraud and cheating which was given to the Anti-Corruption Commission only last year by amending an existing law.
On Tuesday, senior officials of the Law and Home Ministries, Cabinet Division, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and police discussed the matter in a high-level meeting at the Secretariat, where the participants placed their respective proposals for further amending the law.
Citing manpower crisis, the ACC has proposed that it now wants to investigate only those cases that are related to government employees, including public representatives, and employees of banks and financial institutions.
The remaining cases of various kinds of cheating and fraud should be handled by the police.
Police first got the authority to probe into cases of cheating and fraud in 2004, when the Bureau of Anti-Corruption was turned into a full-fledged commission.
However last year, police was stripped off the authority through the Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Act 2013.
Since that amendment came into effect, police have been allegedly showing reluctance in accepting cases of cheating and fraud, ACC officials have said.
According to the existing law, police can accept cases filed in connection with cheating and fraud, but eventually have to refer them to the ACC.
On Tuesday, the ACC said if they remained busy with small fraud cases, the investigation of major corruption cases might get hampered.
ACC attorney Mosharrof Hossain Kajol told the Dhaka Tribune that people had been facing problems since the law had been amended last year that empowered the graft buster as the sole authority to file and investigate all kinds cases involving irregularity.
“The ACC should not be the sole authority for such cases. People are used to filing cases with their nearest police stations or with courts. But now, for filing cases even in connection with petty frauds, they are having to take the trouble of coming to ACC offices. Cases of frauds filed under section 420 of the penal code should be handed over to police again,” he said.
“The commission does not have enough manpower. As a sophisticated organisation, ACC should investigate into graft cases only,” he said.
At present, ACC gets many cheating and fraud complaints every day. First they scrutinise those complaints to filter out the fake ones. Before filing a case, they first conduct a primary inquiry to be sure about the credentials. Then they file a case with a relevant police station.
ACC Chairman Md Badiuzzaman is currently out of the country and no other commissioner could be reached for comment over phone as of 10pm yesterday.
The Dhaka Tribune has obtained a copy of the proposals discussed in that meeting. It says the Police have also sought the authority to investigate cases filed under the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012. The ACC however said it did not have any prosposal in this regard.
Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune that the ACC’s power would be curbed if the amendment was passed.
“There will be a conflict of interest if police was given power to investigate money laundering cases,” he said.
On April 6, ACC Commissioner M Shahabuddin told reporters that there was no conflict of interest before 2004 when the Bureau of Anti-Corruption was the sole authority for such cases.
“Police used to lodge first information reports [FIRs] and send them to us. That was how things worked for a long time. There was no bar for police for filing cases then. There is no such bar now either,” he said.
Defending the amendment of the law that made ACC the sole authority, the commissioner said at that time: “The government did not make any sudden decision to empower the ACC with the power. It was first placed as a bill in parliament, later scrutinised by the standing committee and the change was made and the bill was passed as per their recommendations.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, the anti-graft body proposed that its officials should have similar authority, status and benefits as the officer-in-charge of police stations for conducting inquiry or investigation. Just like the police officers, they should also have the power to search, seize and arrest.
At present, if ACC investigation officers need to arrest someone in connection with a case, they have to take help from police as they lack the necessary logistics and resources.
Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told the Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday that there was a little a problem in the law which was hampering implementation.