Gazette on lower court judges' service rules next week: Law minister

The government is 'very much closer' to publishing a gazette on service rules of lower court judges, Law Minister Anisul Huq has said.

After a meeting with Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha at the Supreme Court on Thursday, the law minister said the gazette would be published next week.

Huq met the chief justice also on July 16 amidst a row between the executive and the judiciary over the gazette, an issue that has remained unresolved for over two and a half years.

The law minister had said after that meeting that the gazette would be published by Thursday.

After Thursday's meeting, he told reporters, "All I can say is that the discussion has progressed much and we are very much closer to gazette the service rules of the lower court judges."

Huq commented that some issues have been ‘grasped’ and those over which there was a difference of opinion have been 'removed to a great extent'.

"It will be finalised next week," the law minister said.

The government submitted a draft of the service rules of subordinate court judges as part of the judiciary's separation from the executive ordered by the Supreme Court in the historic verdict of Masdar Hossain case in 1999.

The Supreme Court declared the draft contradictory to the verdict in August last year and issued a number of directives regarding it.

The court amended the draft and sent it back to the law ministry, asking it to finalise and submit it as a report on Nov 6.

With Attorney General Mahbubey Alam failing to submit any progress report on that day, the Appellate Division ordered the State to inform it about the steps taken to finalise the rules and submit them, scheduling Nov 7 for the order.

Since then, the Supreme Court has extended the time several times for the government to issue the gazette.

The government secured the last extension of one week on Monday.