BCB appoints disciplinary panel

The BCB has appointed Justice Mohammad Abdur Rashid as chairman of its disciplinary panel, from which an anti-corruption tribunal will be formed to look into allegations of match-fixing and spot-fixing in the Bangladesh Premier League. The disciplinary panel has ten other members including four former cricketers.

The BCB had initially appointed another former Supreme Court chief justice two days after the ICC had sent notice to the nine accused on August 13 this year. However, no disciplinary panel was formed and the BCB missed the 40-day deadline to start the hearing by September 23. Forty-seven days after missing the first deadline, the BCB took the next step in the anti-corruption process.

Former Supreme Court judges Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Sheikh Rezowan Ali, and former district & sessions judge SKM Anisur Rahman Khan were part of the panel. Ajmalul Hossain QC, barrister-at-law Nihad Kabir and poet Nirmalendu Goon filled the quota of members of civil society, while Shakil Kasem, Fakrul Ahsan, Mahmudul Hasan Saju and Mahboob Hussain were the former cricketers appointed to the panel.

Rashid, a retired judge of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, and will head the panel and select three members to form the anti-corruption tribunal to hear each case. The panel and tribunal will operate from the Gulshan offices in Dhaka and the first meeting was held today.

According to 5.1.2 clause of the BCB's anti-corruption code, "one member of the anti-corruption tribunal, who shall be a retired justice of Supreme Court of Bangladesh/retired District Judge, shall sit as the convener of the tribunal. One member shall be drawn from the persons having expertise in cricket. The other one shall be appointed from socially well-recognised civilians. The appointed members shall be independent of the parties and shall have had no prior involvement with the case."