Police on Thursday refused to register the first information report of the sedition case against Ali Ahsan Mujahid and Abdul Kader Molla, secretary general and assistant secretary general respectively of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, and Shah Mohammad Abdul Hannan, former chairman of the National Board of Revenue, and sent the case back to the court.
Jamaat leaders
The officer-in-charge claimed that the sanction was a prerequisite for filing such a case under the law. The police's refusal to register the FIR of the sedition case came within a couple of hours of the law and information adviser to the military-driven interim government, Mainul Hosein, telling the journalists that 'an individual cannot sue anyone on sedition and treason charges.'
According to section 44 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), it is the duty of any person to inform the court or the police of commission or intention for commission of some offences including treason and sedition, legal experts said.
Section 44 says: 'Every person, aware of the commission of, or of the intention of any other person to commit any offence punishable under any of the following section of the Penal Code (namely) 121, 121A…., shall, in the absence of reasonable excuse, forthwith give the information to the nearest magistrate or police officer of such commission or intention.'
Although section 196 of the criminal code bars any court to take cognisance of any offence of sedition and treason under section 121A and 123A of the Penal Code without sanction from the government for the case, the magistrate should initiate the proceedings in any case filed on the charges by any individual legal experts said, referring to several provisions of the law.
According to them, as the case was filed with the chief metropolitan magistrate's court and the court ordered the police to record it as an FIR, it was the duty of the officer-in-charge to record the FIR and then to refer the matter to the government seeking its sanction for the investigation of the case.
We are really disappointed by the action of the police and wonder how they dare not obey the court order in the above matter.
Gopal Sengupta
Canada
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