The central bank has withdrawn its proposed draft bill recommending a maximum penalty of death for production and circulation of counterfeit currency notes.
‘We have withdrawn the proposed draft bill,’ Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman told New Age on Friday.
The BB move was spurred by a threat of the German central bank to suspend its planned help to Bangladesh Bank for recommending capital punishment for a crime that, in Bundesbank’s opinion, did not deserve the severest penalty.
Atiur said a proposal for awarding death penalty to currency note forgers had been forwarded by a BB committee to the government without his knowledge.
‘We will hold a meeting as early as possible to discuss the issue. The meeting will come up with a new proposal on punishment of counterfeiters.’
He said the BB might suggest life sentence as the highest punishment awardable for the crime.
According to a Reuters report on Thursday, the Bundesbank said it would suspend a plan to help the BB because of the death penalty proposed by it.
The German central bank said it was not aware of the plan to impose death penalty for making fake currencies when it agreed to the cooperation, the report said.
‘The Bundesbank thinks that counterfeiting is a serious offence, but considers the threat of a death penalty excessive,’ it said in a statement, adding that its Bangladeshi project would be terminated before its launch, if the plan to impose death penalty was not scrapped, reported Reuters.
‘The BB normally doesn’t make such proposals,’ Atiur said, adding that he, too, came to know of it from the Reuters report on Thursday.
The economist-turned-central bank governor said, ‘I am trying to turn the BB from a traditional to a human central bank. So, I can’t support making a proposal for awarding death penalty to counterfeiters.’