The Ministry of Public Administration has made three Deputy Secretaries Officers on Special Duty (OSD) following allegations of fraud and forgery linked to their appointments under the Freedom Fighter quota in the 29th Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examination. The administrative decisions were formally issued in three separate notifications on Wednesday night.
The affected officers are Tofazzal Hossain, Jamalpur Zonal Settlement Officer; Rokibur Rahman Khan, Director at the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA); and Nahida Barik, Secretary to the Bangladesh Forest Industries Development Corporation.
All three officers entered government service through the administration cadre of the 29th BCS examination. Official government records listed them as recruits under the non-gazetted quota allocated to the children of Freedom Fighters. However, an inquiry conducted by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) revealed that none of these individuals had originally applied under the Freedom Fighter quota during the civil service examinations. The ACC subsequently filed three separate criminal cases against them for corrupt practice and forging documentation to secure public appointments.
Public administration records indicate that the initial gazette notification for the 29th BCS administration cadre was published on 10 July 2011, naming 184 successful candidates. At that time, 14 posts remained vacant due to an absence of eligible candidates under the designated Freedom Fighter quota. Thirteen months after the release of the primary gazette, the Ministry of Public Administration published a supplementary notification incorporating the names of these three officers alongside several others.
The disciplinary measure follows a directive sent from the Cabinet Division to the Ministry of Public Administration on 4 April. The communication highlighted that the ACC had initiated six individual cases against six government officers for fraudulently obtaining appointments across various 29th BCS cadres without submitting quota applications. The Cabinet Division urged the ministry to take immediate departmental action against the accused.
Six months after receiving the directive, the ministry acted against the three administration cadre officials. The remaining three accused officers belong to the Bangladesh Police, Health, and Education cadres; relevant ministries have yet to institute formal disciplinary action or job reassignments regarding their status.
