The government will appeal today to the High Court to recall its order which had stayed the proceedings in the arson case pending with a Dhaka Speedy Trial Court against 46 top opposition leaders.
Attorney general Mahbubey Alam told New Age on Saturday that the petition would be filed today seeking the High Court order, passed on August 6, to be recalled.
On August 6, the bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar stayed for eight weeks the proceedings in the case against 46 top opposition leaders, including Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, on charge of setting a bus on fire near the Prime Minister’s Office on April 29.
The High Court had passed the order after hearing a writ petition filed by BNP lawmaker AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon challenging the legality of the Speedy Trial Court-5 saying that it was constituted by the Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate without a gazette notification as stipulated by the Law and Order Infringing Offences (Speedy Trial) Act 2002.
‘As the gazette notification is now available with us, I think there is no legal bar to continuing the proceedings of the case with the speedy trial court and on that ground we would appeal for recalling the stay order,’ Mahbubey Alam said.
In its August 6 order, the court also asked the government to explain in two weeks the legality of the
notification issued on July 31 by Dhaka’s chief metropolitan magistrate to constitute the Speedy Trial Court-5 with metropolitan magistrate Harun-or-Rashid for holding the trial of the case.
The Speedy Trial Court-5 on August 7 suspended for two months the proceedings in the case following the High Court order.
On July 31, the Speedy Trial Tribunal-5 charged 46 opposition leaders with setting a bus on fire.
The Detective Branch of police on May 10 submitted the charge sheet against the 46 opposition leaders and activists to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.
The 46 indicted leaders also include BNP standing committee members MK Anwar, Mirza Abbas, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Sadeque Hossain and Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, Liberal Democratic Party president Oli Ahmed, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s acting amir Mokbul Hossain, Bangladesh Jatiya Party president Andaleeve Rahman Partha and BNP leaders Amanullah Aman, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Nazimuddin Alam and Habibunnabi Khan Sohel, all of whom are now on bail.