High Court halts Bar Council election

The High Court has put off the holding of Bar Council elections following objections over the voters’ list and the polling procedure.

The bench of Justices Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman gave the order on Thursday after hearing two petitions on the matter.
 
It also issued a rule over the pleas filed by lawyer Yunus Ali Akhand.
 
But the Bar Council secretary and three of the candidates have appealed to the Chamber Judge against the High Court’s stay order on the polls.
 
The Chamber Judge has sent the appeal to the regular bench of the Appellate Division, which will hear the matter on Sunday.
 
The polls for the lawyers’ regulatory body were scheduled for May 27. It had been shifted from May 20 after the voters’ list encountered objections.
 
The schedule for the Bar Council election was announced on Mar 25 and an initial electoral roll comprising 48,465 voters was published on Apr 9.
 
Five elected members of the council and another 101 lawyers wrote to the chairman and the secretary, claiming the voters’ list was ‘vague’ with repetition of names.

The petition filed by Akhand said that the rules stipulate the publication of the final voters’ list 30 days before the polls but the clause had not been complied with in this case.
 
The Bar Council polls elect a total of 14 members. Of them, seven are elected through votes of registered lawyers and each of the rest by the seven regional Bar Councils across the country.
 
These 14 members vote to elect a vice-chairman. The attorney general acts as the Bar Council’s chairman as per the regulations.
 
Akhand filed the writ on May 17 challenging the schedule, the voters’ list and Section 3 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council (Amendment) Act, 2003.
 
The high Court heard the writ on May 19 and issued the rule on Thursday.
 
Akhand argued for himself, while Deputy Attorney general Taposh Kumar Biswas stood for the state.
 
The High Court asked why the schedule should not be declared illegal and why the Section 3 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council (Amendment) Act, 2003, should not be declared contradictory to the Constitution.
 
The Bar Council and the law secretary were asked to respond to the rule within four weeks, Akhand said.
 
He also said, as the current Bar Council’s term would end on May 31, the government would be able to constitute an ad hoc body by invoking Section 46 of the Bangladesh Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Order, 1972.