The High Court, in an observation said that the Anti-Corruption Commission is an independent organisation and if it works independently, the country’s growth will be steady. But if the ACC fails to do so, everyone will have to be on the streets to beg, the High Court said. We may add where corruption is free thieves have it all.
The High Court bench of Justice FRM Nazmul Ahsan and Justice KM Kamrul Kader made the observations while recording the statement of ACC officials on the issue of wrong person being in jail for 3 years. In the hearing, Advocate Khurshid Alam told the court that it was the government lawyers’ mistake to file the cases against Jaha Alam. The High Court on Sunday directed the jail authorities to release Jaha Alam who was in jail for the last three years instead of the real accused in 26 corruption cases.
Between 2010 and 2011, Abu Salek, a businessman, misappropriated about Tk 18 crore from Sonali Bank’s Cantonment branch. Salek used a fake address to open an account with the bank, the ACC said. Salek also had an account in another private bank, ACC sources said. In 2012, the anti-graft watchdog filed the 33 cases over the misappropriation, and Salek was made accused in most of them. During investigation, the Commission asked the banks’ officials to identify and trace Salek.
If the ACC had been more vigilant — which is its actual job, it could easily have prevented this innocent man from spending three years in jail. Nowadays it seems to be a cottage industry for someone to be arrested and put in jail on trumped up charges. But the lower courts also should have asked for further evidence before putting Jaha Alam in jail. In this case, both the judiciary and the ACC failed in their duty. In this particular case it took the attention of the media to garner enough attention to this man to finally enable him to get released. If the media had not done so the innocent man would still have been in jail even now.
Every organ of the government suffers from the current atmosphere of fear. ACC was set up for investigating high levels of corruption in the public bodies. But the big corrupt ones wield state power and the ACC shows its activities by abusing its free power to arrest anybody before materials are available for filing FIR. So the ACC is not fighting corruption on all fronts, and as a result corruption is increasing.
We see the need for the courts to be flexible about granting bail. It will not be helpful if the prisoners are serving in jail due to the courts’ practice of saying no to bail. Truth of the cases must be established if people are kept in jail, if their bail is refused.
In our view before the issuance of a charge-sheet nobody must spend time in jail even if the police orders that bail be refused for any specific individual.
Our criminal justice system is working to facilitate corruption in the bail business. The courts can easily stop it. Courts are the people’s last hope. Even in time of difficulties it is only the courts that can show moral uprightness.
