HC okays ACC power to file cases

The High Court yesterday justified two sections of the Anti-Corruption Commission law that permit it to ask for wealth statements from a corrupt suspect and file a case for amassing illegal properties.

The court rejected four separate writ petitions filed by four corruption accused challenging the legality of sections 26 and 27 of the ACC act 2004 under which most of the corruption cases have been filed.

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The HC came up with the verdict after holding hearing arguments from the counsels from the petitioners and ACC.

Delivering the verdict, the HC observed that the ACC, which is an independent body, asks the corrupt suspects for submitting their wealth statements to it and file cases on the charge of accumulating assets beyond known source of income under the two sections of the ACC law.

Citing the HC observation, ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told

The Daily Star that nobody's fundamental rights have been curtailed due to the sections of the law and there is no illegality or unconstitutional element in those.

Under the sections, many people were convicted and sentenced to three or 10 years' imprisonments and a number of accused got acquittal from the charges.

Afroza Islam, Rabiul Islam, Zamir Ahmed and Nasima Akhtar, the four accused of separate corruption cases, filed the writ petitions with the HC in 2011.

They said in the petitions that they are not involved in any corruption and they pay income taxes to the government regularly under the income tax law, and there is no necessity of the sections of the ACC law, Khurshid added.