The search committee to form a new Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is unlikely to be constituted before the Eid holidays.
Officials anticipate that the committee will be formed in the first week of next month after the break, meaning the ACC may remain without a commission for another one and a half months.
The anti-graft body has been operating without commissioners since the resignation of the commission led by Dr Mohammed Abdul Momen on March 3.
Since the Bureau of Anti-Corruption was transformed into the ACC in 2004, this is the longest period the institution has remained without a commission.
Several senior ACC officials told The Daily Star that the institution has become largely stagnant. They had hoped the search committee would be formed before Eid and that a new commission would take office by mid-next month, but the delay has disappointed them.
Officials said although the ACC Act, 2004 has been reinstated, no initiative has yet been taken to form the legally required search committee for appointing a new commission.
The previous interim government had attempted to amend the ACC Act through an ordinance issued on December 23 last year.
During the first parliamentary session of the BNP-led government, 133 ordinances, including the ACC-related ordinance, were placed before parliament. Of those, 113 were passed, seven rejected, and 13 -- including the ACC ordinance -- remained pending.
Under the law, the effectiveness of those 13 ordinances expired 30 days after the start of the parliamentary session on April 11. As a result, the ACC Act, 2004 came back into effect from that date.
However, more than a month after the law was reinstated, the Cabinet Division has yet to form the search committee to appoint a new ACC chairman and two commissioners.
According to the law, the search committee will prepare a shortlist of six candidates, from which the president will appoint three commissioners and designate one as chairman.
The absence of a commission has stalled key activities, including approval of cases, submission of charge sheets, and issuance of travel bans on suspects, said ACC Secretary Mohammad Khaled Rahim.
The ACC Act and its rules do not provide any legal mechanism for taking such decisions without commissioners.
However, complaint reception, preliminary scrutiny, investigations approved by the previous commission, and judicial proceedings are continuing, added the secretary.
ACC sources said over 300 complaints have been submitted since March 3, including allegations against former chief adviser to the interim government Dr Muhammad Yunus, former law adviser Asif Nazrul, and former health adviser Nurjahan Begum. These allegations are now under review by the ACC’s verification committee.
Khaled Rahim also said, “I have no information regarding when the search committee for forming the commission will be constituted.”
“After discussing with the Cabinet Division, I am handling only the most urgent matters. Once the new commission joins, it will approve other activities,” he added.
Under the ACC Act, 2004, the five-member search committee must include a judge from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, a judge from the High Court Division, the Comptroller and Auditor General, a recently retired cabinet secretary, and the chairman of the Public Service Commission.
