Steps on CrPC Sections 54, 167 after getting Supreme Court guideline: Minister Kamal

The government will take steps on Sections 54 and 167 of Criminal Procedure Code after publication of the Supreme Court guideline on applying the laws, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday scrapped the State’s appeal against a 2003 High Court verdict that includes an order to amend the sections and a set of instructions to be followed while applying them before the amendment.

The top appeals court said it will give a guideline on how to apply these two sections, which provide for arrest without warrant and interrogation in custody respectively.

Later in the afternoon, Home Minister Kamal told reporters at his office, “We don’t have anything to say about the honourable Supreme Court’s verdict. We will take steps following the verdict.”

“We will check what we are lacking once we get the Supreme Court guideline. We’ll take steps after reviewing the guideline,” he added.

Kamal also denied the allegation that law enforcers arrested magazine editor Shafik Rehman ‘in the guise of journalists’ when a reporter raised a question in this connection.

“You see plainclothesmen wear vests with SB (Special Branch), DB (Detective Branch), RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) and police written on them while arresting someone. They wear this while working,” he said.

The minister claimed “steps were being taken against the misuse of Section 54” and everything was “being run properly under his surveillance”.