Vested Property Act (Bangladesh)

The Vested Property Act is a controversial law in Bangladesh that allows the government to confiscate property from individuals it deems as an enemy of the state. Before the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, it was known as the Enemy Property Act. It is now called the Vested Property Act – 2013.

Though renamed as the Vested Property Act in 1974, the law still retains the fundamental ability to deprive a Bangladeshi citizen of property simply by declaration of that person as an enemy of the state. Leaving the country through abandonment is cited as the most common reason for this, and it is frequently the case that Hindu families who have one or several members leaving the country (due to religious atrocities against Hindus, and economic as well as political reasons) have their entire property confiscated due to labeling as enemy.

Much of the property of murdered Hindu politician Dhirendranath Datta was confiscated by the Bangladesh government after independence in 1971 Because Datta's body was never found after he was arrested by the Pakistan Army during the Bangladesh Liberation War, an affidavit was brought forward that it could not be concluded that Datta had not voluntarily left the country. The family property of Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen had been confiscated by the Pakistan government. In 1999, the Bangladesh government announced that it was investigating opportunities to return the property to Sen's family.

A seminal book by Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University, Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act, was published in 2000. This included 748,850 families dispossessed of agricultural land. The total amount of land lost by Hindu households as a result of this discriminatory act was estimated at 1.64 million acres (6,640 km2), which is equivalent to 53 per cent of the total land owned by the Hindu community and 5.3 per cent of the total land area of Bangladesh. The survey also showed that the beneficiaries of the land grab through the act cut across all party lines. The political affiliation of direct beneficiaries of appropriated property was:
Bangladesh Awami League 44.2%
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) 31.7%
Jatiya Party 5.8%
Jamaat e Islami 4.8%
Others 13.5%

The greatest appropriation of Hindu property took place immediately after independence during the first Awami League government (1972–75) and during the first period of rule of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (1976 1980). Barkat's work also showed that since 1948, 75% of the land of religious minorities in East Pakistan and subsequent Bangladesh had been confiscated through provisions of the act. Barkat also emphasized that less than 0.4% of the population of Bangladesh has benefited from the Enemy Property Act, demonstrating that this law has been abused by those in power through corruption, with no demonstrated sanction by the population at large.

The law in its implementation has been seen as a factor behind the reduction of the Bangladeshi Hindu population percentage, which has declined from an estimated 30% in 1947, to 17% in 1965 to 16% today, representing a loss of around 11 million people.

During Bangladesh's first three decades of independence many politicians made empty promised to repeal the act. The first government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman vowed to repeal any laws that contradicted the values of the newly liberated country; the Enemy Property Act contravened non communal provisions of the new constitution. But instead of being repealed it was sustained under a new name in 1974. Finally in the run up to the 2001 election Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League succeeded in a drive to repeal the act. The Vested Properties Return Act (2001) was implemented (in a session boycotted by the opposition BNP and Jamaat members) in an effort to make amends for the confiscated property. However little progress has been made in returning or compensating lost property under the Khaleda Zia government from 2001 to 2006. In 2008, [HRCBM (Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities)] filed a writ before Bangladesh Supreme Court under article 102 of the constitution.