President revokes punishment of 21 NBR officials over 2025 protests

Presidential Clemency Ends Punishment of 21 Revenue Officials After Historic NBR Shutdown

Bdbusinessdaily.com – The Bangladesh president has granted clemency to 21 National Board of Revenue (NBR) officers whose disciplinary penalties were imposed following last year’s prolonged protest movement against the restructuring of the country’s revenue administration. Separate notifications issued by the Internal Resources Division (IRD) on 6 September confirmed the formal withdrawal of all punitive actions taken against the affected officials.

The decision closes a chapter that began in June 2025, when revenue-sector employees staged what became the most sustained work stoppage in the history of the NBR. For roughly six weeks, customs houses and tax offices across Bangladesh operated under partial or total paralysis, with the final days of the shutdown bringing revenue collection to a near-complete halt at the close of the financial year. The disruption extended to the NBR headquarters in Dhaka and to every regional office nationwide — a scale of inactivity that had no precedent in the institution’s decades-long record.

The Protests and Their Trigger

The movement was set in motion by the promulgation of the Revenue Policy and Revenue Management Ordinance, 2025, signed into effect on 12 May 2025. NBR officers and employees viewed the ordinance as a fundamental reorganisation of how revenue administration would be structured going forward. What began as targeted objections quickly escalated into countrywide sit-ins, marches, and rallies that brought revenue-sector operations to a standstill.

By the end of June, work had ceased at customs and tax offices in virtually every district. For several consecutive days, no revenue activity took place anywhere in the country. The timing proved particularly damaging: the shutdown coincided with the final weeks of the fiscal year, when the government depends heavily on last-minute collections to meet its annual revenue targets. The financial implications of that gap were felt across the budget cycle.

The movement was eventually called off after mediation efforts led by prominent business figures brought both sides back to the negotiating table. In the aftermath, authorities moved swiftly to impose disciplinary consequences on officials deemed responsible for the most visible acts of defiance.

What the Officials Did — and Why It Mattered

During the height of the protests, a number of NBR officers publicly tore up transfer orders that had been issued to them. Some had played organising roles in coordinating the movement; others joined demonstrations while keeping their offices locked and unmanned. Authorities treated the act of destroying official orders as a direct breach of the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules, 1979, specifically Rule 30A. The same conduct was also classified as “misconduct” under Rule (b) of the Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 2018.

Departmental investigations were opened and concluded that the allegations were proven. Penalties varied by individual but included temporary suspension from duty and reduction in pay grade. The IRD later received appeals from the affected officers seeking presidential clemency. The president reviewed each case and ordered that all punitive measures be revoked.

Officials Whose Punishments Were Withdrawn

The clemency covers a cross-section of senior and mid-level revenue officers:

Commissioner (Current Charge) Md Zakir Hossain; Joint Commissioners of Taxes Morshed Uddin Khan, Masuma Khatun, Md Mamun Mia, Monalisa Shahrin Susmita, and Md Sanwarul Kabir; Deputy Commissioners of Taxes Imam Tauhid Hasan Shakil, Md Zillur Rahman, Mohammad Saidul Islam, and Mohammad Shihabul Islam; Additional Commissioners of Taxes Murad Ahmed, Mirza Ashik Rana, Hasan Muhammad Tarek Rikabdan Sifat-e-Morium, Sultana Habib, Chand Sultana Chowdhurani, AAM Amimul Ehsan Khan, and Sadhan Kumar Kundu; Second Secretary (Deputy Commissioner) Md Shahadat Jamil; and Revenue Officers Sabuj Mia and Shafiul Bashar.

Broader Context and Implications

The episode underscores the tension that has persisted between Bangladesh’s revenue bureaucracy and successive governments over the pace and manner of institutional reform. The NBR, which administers both customs duties and domestic taxes, employs tens of thousands of officers and controls the largest single source of government income. When that workforce collectively withdraws its labour, the fiscal consequences are immediate and severe.

The fact that the president chose to revoke rather than uphold the disciplinary findings signals a political calculation: that the officers’ actions, while formally rule-breaking, were understood as expressions of institutional grievance rather than personal insubordination. For the revenue workforce, the clemency decision may be read as validation that their protest was legitimate in its objectives, even if the methods — tearing up orders, locking offices — remained technically punishable.

For the government, the revocation removes a source of lingering resentment within the revenue ranks at a time when it still needs the cooperation of NBR personnel to implement the very restructuring that sparked the unrest. The Revenue Management Ordinance, 2025, remains in force; the question now is whether the institution can absorb its provisions without another round of collective resistance.

“The actions violated Rule 30A of the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules, 1979 and constituted ‘misconduct’ under Rule (b) of the Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 2018.”

The IRD notifications make clear that the revocation is a presidential act of clemency, not a finding that the original disciplinary proceedings were erroneous. The investigations stood; the penalties simply will not be carried out. That distinction matters for future cases: it preserves the legal architecture of civil-service discipline while allowing the head of state to exercise mercy where institutional solidarity and political stability are judged to outweigh strict enforcement.

For the 21 officers named in the notifications, the practical effect is immediate restoration of full pay, grade, and duty status. For the wider NBR workforce, the message is that the state acknowledges the protest’s grievances without formally endorsing the methods used to voice them. Whether that balance holds as the revenue sector moves into its next phase of reform remains to be seen.