The High Court (HC) today declared “illegal” the gazette notifications and circular determining the minimum age of the freedom fighters.

The government in 2014 issued a circular fixing the minimum age of a freedom fighter 13 years as of March 26, 1971.

Later on, in January last year, the government amended the gazette notification re-fixing the minimum age of the freedom fighter as 12 years and six months as of November 30, 1971.

The HC today scrapped the gazette notification saying that the government has no authority to issue any circular or gazette notification fixing the age of freedom fighters.

The court also directed the government to give all due honourium within 60 days to the freedom fighters who were deprived due to the circular.

The HC bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Razik–Al Jalil delivered the verdict following 15 separate writ petitions filed by around 150 freedom fighters challenging the legality of the gazette notification.

One of the writ petitioners Mahmud Hasan, director of department of geological survey, said in the petition that he is a freedom fighter and he had joined the geological survey as a freedom fighter on June 26 of 1988.

He said the gazette notifications have affected him as he was 12 years, four months and 12 days of age on November 30, 1971 adding that the gazette notifications contradict the spirit of the Liberation War.