HC upholds ACC's authority to seek wealth statements

The High Court yesterday justified the legal provisions that allow the Anti Corruption Commission to seek wealth statement from corruption suspects to move cases against them for amassing illegal wealth.

The bench of Justice Zinat Ara and Justice KM Kamrul Kader rejected a writ petition filed by three corruption accused challenging the legality of the provisions of the Anti Corruption Commission law.

ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star that there is no legal bar to the commission to seek wealth statement from corruption suspects to move cases against them for amassing illegal wealth.

Delwar Hossain, the then customs inspector of Armanitola circle in Dhaka, his wife Ferdaus Ara Begum and their son Monjur Morshed, accused of a corruption case, filed the writ petition with the HC in 2011 challenging the legality of sections 26 and 27 of the ACC law.

The HC the same year issued a rule asking the government and the ACC to explain as to why the sections of the law should not be declared illegal and stayed the case proceedings against them.

Yesterday, the HC vacated its stay order and asked the lower court concerned to finish the trial proceedings of the case against the petitioners in eight months, he added.