THE failure of the Anti-Corruption Commission to complete 4,008 inquiries and investigations and 3,348 cases that the commission filed having been pending with court are worrying on a couple of counts. Official statistics show that trial proceedings are under way in 2,919 cases out of the total 3,348 cases pending with courts while trial proceedings have been stalled in 429 cases on High Court orders. Besides, 732 writ petitions, 927 criminal miscellaneous cases, 1,223 criminal appeals and 681 criminal revision cases are pending for disposal until March. Yet, which is more worrying is that the commission has failed, as official data show, to complete inquiries and investigations in 4,008 cases although, as commission rules lay out, an officer gets a maximum of 75 days to complete an inquiry and 270 days to complete an investigation. The commission has showed similar failures in 2023, too, when it could complete 2,029 inquiries but the rest of 2,399 inquiries remained pending. The commission that year could complete 555 investigations but investigation of 1,609 more cases remained pending. The failure to complete inquiries and investigations and delay in trial benefits corruption suspects because it creates the scope for the suspects to find a way out of the commission鈥檚 net. The event of delayed or no punishment in corruption ultimately adds to the culture of impunity and entails injustice on people.
Experts criticise the commission for its failure to complete the investigation of 52 cases filed against former NRB Global Bank managing director Proshanta Kumar Halder and 85 others in 2020鈥�2022 in connection with the embezzlement of Tk 34 billion from various financial institutions. In January 2023, the commission formed a two-member team for inquiries to establish whether the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority managing director amassed illegal wealth and laundered money after the media had reported on his buying 14 houses in the United States. The inquiry has stalled. In 2019, the commission began inquiries of 22 former and sitting members of parliament, including several of the ruling Awami League, on charges of corruption, but the inquires have not been completed. The inquiry of the non-funded part of the Hallmark Group scam involving the embezzlement of Tk 12 billion has been pending for 12 years. The inquiry began in 2012. Most of the inquiries and investigations of corruption and irregularities in the health sector during the Covid outbreak has been pending for three years. More than a hundred people listed by the commission are suspected to have been involved in corruption in recruitment, tender forgery, purchase wrongdoings, illegal involvement in business and the accumulation of illegal wealth. The commission seeks to put the failure down to inadequate human resources, claiming to have put efforts in completing the tasks in time and hoping for a better future.
But what it comes down to is the commission鈥檚 glaring failure to complete its tasks in time and making delays that not only denies justice, going by the legal maxim of 鈥榡ustice delayed is justice denied鈥�, but also adds to the culture of impunity, entailing further injustice. The commission also must learn to rise above politics if there were any political considerations in the failure and delay at hand. The commission must live up to its mandate.
