Staff Correspondent

Jatiya Sangsad speaker Muhammad Jamiruddin Sircar has said he has no authority to tell former lawmakers to vacate the NAM flats they are living in.

The speaker clarified his position on the apartments in a letter addressed to chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed Sunday. The correspondence, a copy of which was obtained by bdnews24.com Monday, makes clear the speaker's opinion that the NAM flats were allocated to the former members of parliament in accordance with a decision made by a Sangsad committee (parliament committee).

"According to the decision of the parliament committee, the MPs of the eighth parliament will be eligible to live in the NAM flats until the declaration of the official results of the ninth parliamentary polls through publication of the gazette," Sircar said in the letter.

"Therefore there is no scope to cancel the allocation of the flats for the former MPs." Sircar said the Parliament Secretariat, not the housing and pubic works ministry, was the legitimate owner of the flats. Currently, 187 former legislators from different parties are living in the apartments.

In the letter, the speaker proposed that the dispute between the caretaker government and the former lawmakers could be resolved in a meeting between the Parliament Secretariat, the housing and public works ministry and eight of the former MPs.

The proposal suggested that two former lawmakers could be chosen from the Awami League, the BNP, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jatiya Party each, with law adviser AF Hassan Ariff acting as "arbitrator". Sircar also suggested the matter could be referred to the Supreme Court's Appellate Division through the president for legal opinion.

The Directorate of Government Accommodation under the housing and public works ministry handed over 324 flats to the Parliament Secretariat on June 1, 2003 through an official letter, according to the speaker. "Therefore the ministry has no authority over the flats. In accordance with a decision of the parliamentary committee, the flats were renamed Sangsad Sadasya Bhaban," said Sircar.

The speaker pointed out that the constitution made it clear that the Parliament Secretariat must remain independent of any ministry or other arm of government. The parliament committee was formed in 2001 and is tasked with looking after the housing needs and other facilities of lawmakers.

The speaker said 137 of NAM flats were also allocated to officials of the law ministry, the public works ministry, the Special Security Force and the Anticorruption Commission on the condition that they return them to the Parliament Secretariat within 30 days of the declaration of the ninth parliamentary polls.

"Without forming another parliament committee neither the speaker nor the government can annul the decision of the eighth parliament committee," said Sircar. "To form another parliament committee there must be an elected parliament." The issue of evicting the former MPs from the furnished NAM flats has increasingly come to the fore as the national polls near.

The housing and public works ministry issued a letter to former lawmakers living in the flats, located on Manik Mia Avenue and in the Nakhalpara area, to vacate the apartments. Later, the ministry set a March 31 deadline for the flats to be vacated, or face action from the government. In a rare show of unity, the lawmakers came together and in a press conference stated that they would "not leave the flats under any circumstances".

"The ministry cannot issue such an eviction letter because the flats are not the property of the government," former AL lawmaker Shajahan Khan told bdnews24.com Monday. "This is under the Parliament Secretariat," he added. He said the former MPs would pursue the matter through legal channels if the caretaker government tried to evict them forcefully.