Mahabub Alam :About 813 graft cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) remain pending in the High Court and the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court (SC). Among those, most were filed against politicians and businessmen. It is uncertain whether the cases would be revived shortly. Besides, some 3,800 cases of the Commission are under trial in the higher and the lower courts while the trial process continues for 3,087, according Public Relation Office of the ACC.The number of cases remains pending in the lower courts could not be ascertained. The lack of interest of lawyers, manpower shortage of ACC, unskilled Commission officials and lack of special courts to dispose of the ACC cases are described mostly reasons behind the present circumstance of the cases. As per pleas of the alleged accused, the SC court issued ‘stay order’ against the 813 cases.Unless the charge sheets have loopholes, the courts might have not come with the stay order, a lawyer of the Commission told to The New Nation. “I think unskilled of the Commission and apathy of some its lawyers are responsible to a large extent behind the cases pending”, he said. An ACC deputy director said, the Commission makes investigation reports as per its findings. “If the lawyers work actively, all the problems in the courts can be solved”. When asked, Advocate Mosharraf Hossain Kajol, Prosecutor of the ACC, declined to comment. But on lengthy trial process, he said, the Criminal Law Amendment Act-1958, Section-6 (3) said to dispose of the graft case within 60 days. But when the ACC Act-2004 was framed, no deadline was included in this regard. If in the ACC Act had a provision to dispose of the cases within a stipulated time, the number of the cases in the courts could be minimised.
