Mohammad Ali
The judge of the long-awaited special tribunal on the capital market finally assumed Monday his office with its incomplete courtroom, where offenders in share trading are to stand in the dock to face trial
"From now on, the judge will do his office regularly," said an official associated with the tribunal.
However, the authorities concerned could not immediately specify the time required to fully furnish the tribunal, especially its courtroom, even after six months of renting its place at a building in the city for about Tk 142,000 per month.
After the government issued a gazette forming the tribunal on January 2 last year, the authorities hired a 3,017-square-foot space, including veranda, on the 9th floor of Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation (BHBFC) building in Purana Paltan for its establishment.
During the floor visit several times in the last couple of months, the progress in preparing the tribunal, including interior decoration, was apparently found stagnant as no labourer was seen working there.
When contacted, spokesperson for and executive director of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) Mohammad Saifur Rahman attributed the proper maintaining of public procurement rules to the delay in setting up the tribunal.
"We cannot do the work like purchase of materials required for the tribunal without properly following the public procurement rules," Mr Rahman said.
"Following all the requisite procurement criteria is taking time," he went on explaining the delay in completing the spadework.
"After that, we are trying our best to make the tribunal fully ready as soon as possible," the BSEC spokesperson added.
Earlier in late 2012, the Securities and Exchange Ordinance (SEO) 1969 was amended by parliament empowering the government to set up the Special Tribunal(s) to resolve the capital market-related cases. In this connection, a new section-- 25B-- was incorporated into the SEO after section 25A.
On February 24 last year, the government appointed District Judge Humayun Kabir as the judge of the tribunal. He submitted his joining letter to the securities regulator on March 16, sources said.
Establishment of such a special tribunal was a longstanding demand from the stakeholders to deal with the share market-related cases.
The official of the BSEC earlier said that functions of the special tribunal would be run under the power of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)-1898 rather than its own separate rules.
The authorities had primarily thought about framing a separate set of rules for the tribunal, but later they refrained from doing so, according to the official.
However, some legal experts apprehended that in absence of separate 'mode of operandi', multiple complexities might arise during the adjudication process at the tribunal.
Some of them also claimed that there is 'inconsistency' in the tribunal-related sections of the SEO 1969 with the CrPC 1898 in respect of power, structure and modus operandi of the tribunal.
md.ali.du@gmail.com
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