Published : 09 Jul 2026, 07:04 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:23 AM
The High Court has ruled that the candidacy of BNP's Sarwar Alamgir, who won the Chattogram-2 seat in the 13th parliamentary election, is valid.
The ruling clears the way for him to take his oath as an MP.
A bench of Justice Fahmida Kader and Justice Md Asif Hasan delivered the verdict on Thursday.
Lawyers Ahsanul Karim, AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, Nasir Uddin Ahmed Asim represented the petitioner in court, accompanied by lawyer Md Anwar Hossain.
Senior lawyer Mohammad Shishir Manir, accompanied by lawyers Azim Uddin Patwary and Abdullah Sadiq, represented the Jamaat candidate.
Lawyer Md Raju Mia was present at the hearing on behalf of the Election Commission.
After the verdict, Sarwar's lawyer Ahsanul said: "The Election Commission had cancelled Sarwar Alamgir's nomination to stand as a BNP candidate from Fatikchhari-2 and a writ was filed regarding it. The writ was heard today.
"After the hearing, the court said [Sarwar] is not a defaulter. Secondly, the appeal that the Election Commission allowed and rejected the candidacy was illegal, coram non judice (not before a judge), and malice in law (implied malice)."
Ahsanul said, "So [Sarwar] is a valid candidate and he has already been elected. He won by a margin of 70,000 votes. And since the rule over the petition is absolute, now the Election Commission will issue his name in a gazette and he will go to parliament after completing the other formalities, such as taking his oath."
Another lawyer from the same side, Khokon, said: "As a result of this verdict, there is no obstacle to Sarwar Alamgir's gazette notification, since he has won the election, and there is no obstacle to taking the oath."
The returning officer had declared Sarwar's nomination paper valid at scrutiny.
But Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Md Nurul Amin filed an appeal with the Election Commission (EC), alleging Sarwar was a loan defaulter.
The EC upheld the appeal on Jan 18, cancelling his nomination.
Sarwar challenged the decision, filing a writ petition with the High Court on Jan 19.
The court stayed the EC's cancellation.
Nurul then sought leave to appeal before the Appellate Division, which granted the petition on Feb 3.
The order allowed Sarwar to contest in the Feb 12 election, but barred publication of the seat's results until the appeal was finally settled.
Sarwar received 138,545 votes while his closest rival, Jamaat's Nurul, got 62,160 votes.
However, as per the Supreme Court's directive, the EC postponed the publication of the results of that constituency in the gazette.
As a result, Sarwar’s oath-taking was also delayed.
He then appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court seeking permission to publish the results and take the oath.
On Jun 16, the Appellate Division sent the case back to the High Court to settle the rule within two weeks. The verdict was given on Thursday after the final hearing of that rule.
Khokon, the lawyer for the petitioner, said: "On the day the nomination papers were submitted to the Election Commission, the issue was whether he was a defaulter or not. But there was no default there that day, there was no mention of it, and the returning officer was making allowances.
“The Jamaat-e-Islami candidate appealed subsequently. But there too, he did not say [Sarwar] was a defaulter, only speaking in general terms. Then, about 20 days later, he came and showed a document to the High Court, a Supreme Court. There can be no subsequent document.
“But after seeing this, the Election Commission cancelled his nomination. A writ was filed against him. Subsequently, the Election Commission cannot accept any document, cannot take it into consideration, cannot take it into account.”
Khokon said, “It is the subsequent decision of the Election Commission that the High Court Division of the Supreme Court has declared illegal. This further proved that he was not a defaulter, was a legitimate candidate and won by about 70,000 votes as a BNP candidate.”
Stating that he will appeal against the High Court order, the Jamaat candidate’s lawyer Shishir Manir said: "The High Court Division has settled [the rule] today, given a verdict, and with the verdict they have declared that Mr Sarwar Alamgir's nomination was valid. That is, he was not a defaulter on the day he filed the nomination."
Presenting his legal argument, he said: "We have argued the day of scrutiny is not the relevant day here. The day of submission of the nomination papers is the relevant day. The court will have to see when he was a defaulter, is it the day of submission of the nomination papers or the day of scrutiny?
"We said the day of submission, the law also speaks of a day of submission. Even then, the court has made it absolute."
Regarding the oath, he said: "No order has been issued yet. [On Thursday] there was an oral verdict. A written verdict will be issued. After the written verdict, a question will arise about what action the Election Commission will take.
"If the written verdict is issued, we will definitely file an appeal in the High Court. You will hear about it."
