HC rejects writ petition over vacant CJ post

The High Court yesterday rejected a writ petition filed challenging the legality of keeping the post of chief justice vacant.

The bench of Justice Zinat Ara and Justice Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo rejected the petition considering that it had not been submitted since the petitioner's lawyer Eunus Ali Akond was not present before the bench, Deputy Attorney General Ishrat Jahan told The Daily Star.

Supreme Court lawyer Eunus Ali, who filed the petition, told this correspondent that he was not present in court as he was busy with an urgent work.

He said he would move the petition before the court again today.

Eunus submitted the writ petition with the HC on January 3 challenging the legality of keeping the post of CJ vacant and not appointing a successor to former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

In the petition, he prayed to the HC to issue a rule asking the government to explain why its action of keeping the post of the chief justice vacant and not appointing a new chief justice should not be declared illegal.

He also said the post of chief justice cannot be kept vacant even for a day as per the constitution, but the government has not appointed a new chief justice after Justice SK Sinha resigned on November 10 last year.

Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah of the Appellate Division of the SC has been discharging the duties of chief justice since October 3 last year, when then chief justice SK Sinha went on a leave before finally stepping down.