Bangladesh top court to rehear 168 settled cases

The Supreme Court will rehear 161 cases in which former SC judge Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik wrote judgments and orders after his retirement.

The apex court will also hear afresh seven other cases, handled by former chief justice Md Muzammel Hossain, as he returned the files of the cases to the SC Registrar Office amid controversy over writing verdict after retirement, sources said.

Two benches of the Appellate Division of the apex court will start rehearing the 168 cases from May 5, Anisur Rahman, personal secretary to Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, told The Daily Star last night.

Of them, 106 cases have been kept on the Appellate Division's cause list for rehearing by the beach led by the CJ. The rest of the cases will be reheard by another bench led by Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah.

Legal experts said justice seekers will be the ultimate sufferers as they will have to wait more for justice.

The decision came about three months after the CJ said that writing any judgments or orders by a judge after retirement is unconstitutional.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of his taking office, the CJ in a message on January 19 said some judges made unusual delays in writing verdicts while others continued to do it long after their retirement, “which goes against the law and the constitution”.

Former chief justice Muzammel retired on January 16 last year and Justice Manik on October 1.

Sources said that Justice Manik has already submitted the judgments and orders in the 161 cases that were pending with him after his retirement.

Contacted, Manik told The Daily Star last night that he did not hear the cases in question alone and that other Appellate Division judges were part of the bench.

“The chief justice could have assigned other judges to write the verdicts and orders if he did not like my writings,” he said. 

“Litigants will suffer if the cases are heard again,” he said, adding that of the 161 cases that were pending with him, around 80 percent were orders and 20 percent judgments.

Khurshid Alam Khan, an SC lawyer and editor of Dhaka Law Reports, said that the CJ could recall cases for rehearing as the orders and judgments were not signed by any judges, including Justice Manik.

Manik just submitted the drafts of orders and judgments of the cases, he said.

However, Khurshid added the litigants of the cases would suffer as they would have to wait for further hearing and disposal of the cases.