Court Orders No Arrest of Khairul Haque Without Specific Case
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The High Court has ordered that former Chief Justice A. B. M. Khairul Haque not be arrested or harassed in any specific case unless a formal charge is filed against him.
The order came on Sunday from a bench comprising Justices Rajik-Al-Jalil and Debashish Roy Chowdhury, who also issued a rule following an initial hearing on a writ petition.
বিজ্ঞাপন
Khairul Haque was shown as arrested in two separate murder cases in Jatrabari and Adabar police stations in the capital on March 30, after securing bail in five other cases.
His son, lawyer Ashiq Ul Haque, filed the writ petition on May 13 questioning the legality of the arrest process. The court listed the petition for hearing the following day and scheduled further proceedings for May 17. The hearing took place after the midday break on Sunday.
বিজ্ঞাপন
Senior lawyers Kamrul Haque Siddiqui, Motahar Hossain Shaju, Mostafizur Rahman Khan, and Sayeed Ahmed Raja, along with lawyer Monaem Nabi Shaheen, argued Haque’s case. Deputy Attorney General Jamila Momtaz represented the state.
The rule issued by the court seeks to know why the repeated involvement of the petitioner in false cases, solely for the purpose of harassment and humiliation, and the process of showing him arrested on March 30 in the Jatrabari and Adabar cases, should not be declared illegal. It also asks why he should not be directed to be arrested without due legal process.
The respondents in the writ petition include the Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Secretary of Law, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka, the Inspector General of Police, the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police of Dhaka, and the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Jatrabari and Adabar police stations.
Khairul Haque served as Chief Justice from September 30, 2010, to May 17, 2011. An appellate bench led by him delivered a verdict on May 10, 2011, striking down the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
He was previously arrested by police on July 24 last year from his residence in Dhanmondi. Subsequently, he was shown arrested in the murder case of Jubo Dal activist Abdul Kaiyum Ahadi in Jatrabari, Dhaka, during the July uprising. He has been in custody since then.
On March 8, the High Court granted bail to Khairul Haque in four separate cases, including the murder case of Jubo Dal activist Abdul Kaiyum and alleged forgery in the judgment related to the caretaker government system. He also obtained bail on March 11 in another case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
The state filed separate applications seeking a stay on the High Court’s bail orders. However, on April 28, the Appellate Division dismissed the state’s petitions for leave to appeal, upholding the bail granted to Khairul Haque in five cases, including the murder of a Jubo Dal activist in Jatrabari during the July movement.
Despite obtaining bail in these five cases, Khairul Haque was shown arrested in two separate murder cases filed with Jatrabari and Adabar police stations in the capital on March 30. He received interim bail in these two cases from the High Court on May 12, after which the writ petition was filed challenging the legality of the arrest procedure.
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