2 ministers didn’t violate oath: law minister

The two ministers who were found guilty of passing contemptuous comments about the chief justice neither violated the constitution nor their oath as ministers, the law minister said today.

"So, there is no obligation for Food Minister Qamrul Islam and Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq to resign as there was no violation of the constitution," Anisul Huq said while talking to the reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting at the Bangladesh Secretariat.

Though some legal experts agreed that the duo did not violate the constitution, they opined that the ministers should resign on ethical grounds once that the Supreme Court convicted them and fined them Tk 50,000 each for their contemptuous remarks about Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

Emerging from the cabinet meeting, Road Transport Minister Obaidul Quader said it is up to the ministers whether they would resign or not. "It's their personal matter as people have varying ethical standard," he said.

The minister said the government high command did not take the issue positively. "Chief Justice is an institution. None should make sweeping comments about an institution," he said.

Talking to reporters at his ministry office Qamrul said he would decide about the next course of action after consulting with senior lawyers while Mozammel said that he would decide after getting the copy of the SC verdict.

Both the ministers however declined to comment when journalists asked as to whether they would resign or not.

Qamrul and Mozammel made headlines early this month, by coming down hard on the chief justice for two days in a row. They criticised the CJ, after the top judge of the country expressed dissatisfaction over the "poor performance" of the prosecutors and investigators of the war crimes tribunal in dealing with the war crimes case against Mir Quasem Ali.

Qamrul demanded formation of a new bench, keeping the chief justice out of it, for hearing Quasem's appeal afresh. Mozammel went on to say that the CJ should not be delivering the verdict in the appeal.