DHAKA, Nov 30: Furious lawyers on Thursday afternoon stormed the office and courtroom of the chief justice of Bangladesh, Syed JR Mudassir Husain, as he stayed the proceedings of three politically sensitive writ petitions challenging President Iajuddin Ahmed’s assumption of the office of the head of the caretaker government.
Leaders of the Awami League-led alliance, Liberal Democratic Party, Tarikat Federation, some social organisations and another individual filed three writs in the form of public-interest litigation.
The CJ’s stay order came minutes before the High Court was going to issue a rule on President Iajuddin.
The protesters also damaged the doors and broke the windowpanes of the attorney general’s office. Some protestors also set ablaze the car of Shajahan Omar, former state minister for law in the Khaleda Zia’s cabinet.
Supporters of Awami League’s general secretary Abdul Jalil, who was also present in the court precincts as one of the petitioners, shouted slogans against the chief justice in a procession on the road just outside the court building.
Apprehensive judges shut themselves up in their offices as violence spread beyond the courtroom. The police tightened security in and around the High Court, bringing the situation under control, as the angry lawyers were gearing up for street protests.According to on-the-spot accounts, former law minister Moudud Ahmed and former telecommunication minister Aminul Huq managed to escape from the courtroom and then from the court precincts, being shielded by pro-BNP lawyers from the probable attack of the angry lawyers who chased them.
In protest against the chief justice’s unprecedented order, the Supreme Court Bar Association, now led by lawyers connected with the Awami League-led combine, demanded immediate resignation of Chief Justice Mudassir Husain and Attorney General AJ Mohammad Ali and withdrawal of the chief justice’s order.
The bar association also demanded that the chief justice not sit in the court any more and declared AJ Mohammad Ali persona non grata in the Supreme Court precincts. It will also boycott the chief justice’s court.
