Dhaka: A court in central Comilla district on Sunday issued warrants ordering the arrest of the Bangladesh chapter chief and two other members of Transparency International, which is based in Berlin.
The warrants were issued after the three allegedly "maligned" the country's judiciary by calling it a corruption-prone institution.
A court official reached here by phone said the Senior Judicial Magistrate's court issued the arrest warrant against Transparency International Bangladesh's (TIB) trustee board chairman M Hafiz Uddin, executive director Iftek Haruzzaman and fellow Wahid Alam on a petition filed by a local lawyer.
Advocate Mohammad Tawhidur Rahman, a member of the pro-opposition Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Samity, in his complaint said TIB tarnished the "image, honour and reputation of the judiciary" as well as his own career, as it named the judiciary as the "most corrupt service sector" in its survey report published last week.
"Magistrate Gazi Saidur Rahman took the complaint into cognizance and ordered their arrest," the official said.
The TIB report said that the judiciary was the most corrupt among the service sectors in the country followed by law enforcement agencies and the land administration as it came up with its findings on the basis of a household survey it conducted between June 2009 and May 2010.
The TIB report also said that corruption in the country's judiciary system had increased by 40.3 per cent over the past three years. A survey in 2007 had found 47.7 per cent corruption in the judiciary.
The development came a day after law minister Shafique Ahmad dubbed the TIB report "confusing" and "incorrect" and feared the people might lose confidence in the judiciary.
