The appeal to revive the dismissed appeal against the verdict of the High Court declaring the registration of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami illegal will be heard on Tuesday.
It is on the docket of the Appellate Division. Jamaat-e-Islami’s petition is number two on Tuesday’s list of the Appellate Division headed by the Chief Justice.
On September 1 last, Jamaat-e-Islami’s canceled appeal to revive the rejected appeal was fixed for hearing on this day. Appellate Division Chamber Justice Md. Ashfaqul Islam fixed the date of hearing.
Advocate Mohammad Shishir Monir heard on behalf of Jamaat in the court. He said that day, today, the appeal case which was originally dismissed for default, was requested to be revived. In Chambers we have held that the grounds for revival of a case are enumerated in Rules 20 of the Appellate Code. We applied as per these Rules 20. That application was heard. There will be a hearing on October 21 on the basis of priority in the full bench of the Appellate Division. The chamber court has ordered in this regard.
In response to a question, lawyer Mohammad Shishir Monir said that the High Court gave a divided verdict in this case. Two judges ruled to cancel the registration. Another judge ruled in favor of registration. Argument for cancellation of registration states that the person who applied for cancellation of the registration case is himself guilty of bias. Because no political party is banned anywhere in the world based on religion or any political party based on religious practices. Jamaat-e-Islami is a democratic political party. Jamaat was represented in all parliaments of Bangladesh. Thus there can be no grounds for canceling the registration of any party. This is against the Representation of the People Ordinance 1972 and against the Constitution of Bangladesh.
On November 19 last year, the Appellate Bench headed by the then Chief Justice Obaidul Hasan ordered the Jamaat appeal dismissed (dismissed for default) as the lawyer was not present.
After the fall of the Awami League government in the face of intense student movement on August 5, an application was made to revive the appeal rejected by the Supreme Court Appellate Division to get back the canceled registration of Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party. .
Disposing of a writ petition, on August 1, 2013, the High Court ruled that the registration of Jamaat-e-Islami was canceled and declared illegal. Then on December 7, 2018, the Election Commission (EC) issued a notification canceling the registration of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. Later, Jamaat-e-Islami appealed against the verdict in the High Court. However, since the main lawyer of Jamaat was not present at the hearing of the appeal against the High Court’s verdict, the six-judge appellate division led by the then Chief Justice Obaidul Hasan ordered the dismissal of the appeal as ‘dismissal for default’. As a result, the judgment given by the High Court declaring the registration of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party illegal is upheld.
Jamaat-e-Islami was given temporary registration on November 4, 2008. The following year, the then secretary general of Bangladesh Tariqat Federation, Syed Rezaul Haque Chandpuri, the then secretary general of Zaker Party, Munsi Abdul Latif, the president of Sammilit Islami Jota, Maulana Ziaul Hasan, filed a writ challenging the validity of the registration of 25 Jamaats.
The ruling issued on June 12, 2013 on the question of registration of Jamaat was kept for judgment after the hearing. Then on August 1, 2013, a larger bench of the High Court ruled that the registration of the Jamaat was invalid. At that time, the court said in the summary judgment that this registration is outside the legal authority. At the same time, the court also allowed Jamaat-e-Islami to appeal. However, the Appellate Division’s chamber judge AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury dismissed the Jamaat’s application to suspend the judgment on August 5 of the same year. Later, when the full verdict was published on November 2 of the same year, Jamaat-e-Islami appealed. The petitioner took the initiative to hear the appeal.
