Law minister finds controversy over law on arrest of public servants ‘unfounded’

Law Minister Anisul Huq has dismissed as ‘groundless’ the controversy over making a new law that provides for government permission for arresting any public servant on criminal charges before the chargesheet is pressed in court.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 23 July 2015, 05:53 PM
Updated : 3 Sept 2015, 01:54 PM

The Cabinet provisionally endorsed the draft law – Civil Service Act-2015 - on July 13.

Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan had told reporters later government clearance would be mandatory to arrest public servants charged with criminal offence while discharging their duty.

But Minister Huq said at a workshop in Dhaka on Thursday: “It’s not a matter of sanction.”

“As per the second sub-section of this section of the law, the government has to be informed (by law enforcers) before arresting anyone in public service in criminal cases.”

The minister said the provision had been kept so that the government could take departmental action against the person.

He said the government needed information about arrest of any government official following the lodging of first information report (FIR) at police stations to complete the dismissal procedure.

“If a public servant was arrested in a case without knowledge of the government, the government won’t be able to take any action against that individual. Then it would be construed as the government’s weakness. That’s why this provision has been kept,” he added.

Drawing an analogy between the draft law and the colonial-times Code of Criminal Procedure, Huq, a senior lawyer, said: “It is said there (CrPC) that sanction (for arrest) is a must after a case. But this sort of words is not here.

“The sub-section provides that Anti Corruption Act shall take precedence (over this law) in case of corruption.”

“So I wish to say that I think the controversy over this is baseless,” he added.

The minister said the law would not allow the government to prevent arrest of any public servant.

He dismissed the argument that the law was giving public servants privileges and curtailing the rights of the ordinary citizens.