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Published : 25 Jul 2025, 12:35 AM
A dramatic bail hearing for former chief justice and ex-chairman of the Law Commission ABM Khairul Haque has been conducted under the light of mobile phone torches after a power outage plunged the courtroom into darkness.
The hearing took place on Thursday night after Khairul Haque was shown arrested in the murder case of Jubo Dal activist Abdul Kaiyum Ahad in Dhaka’s Jatrabari during the July Uprising.
As power went out during the hearing, the magistrate and court staff resorted to using mobile phone flashlights to complete the session.
Khairul was brought to court around 7:45pm and held in the lock-up of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrates’ (CMM) Court.
Khairul, who once led the top appeals court bench that scrapped Bangladesh’s caretaker government system through the 13th Amendment of the Constitution verdict, was sent to jail pending trial on Thursday night after an earlier hearing.
The investigating officer, Jatrabari police Inspector Khaled Hasan, petitioned the court to keep Khairul in jail over Ahad’s murder.
He was brought into the courtroom shortly after 8:15pm. The power went out at 8:32pm, and the rest of the session was lit by phone torches.
Nationalist Lawyers Forum Dhaka Bar Unit Advocate Md Khorshed Alam said: “He was [Sheikh] Hasina’s loyal servant. He destroyed the judiciary at her instruction. That injustice has now put him in the dock. I hope he is named in as many cases as Hasina is.”
Azizul Haque, acting public prosecutor at the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court, stated: “He is a disgraced former chief justice. Because of him, thousands suffered abuse, enforced disappearance and death over 17 years. The student and mass movement had to pay with countless lives. He forced Sheikh Hasina into autocracy.”
Dhaka Bar Association General Secretary Sayed Nazrul Islam called Khairul “a murder suspect and the instigator of this killing”, demanding maximum punishment.
Dhaka Bar Association President Khorshed Mia Alam remarked, “How someone like him became chief justice is beyond our understanding. He has tainted the very seat of the chief justice. He was sinful from youth. A hundred years wouldn’t be enough to atone for his sins.”
After the arguments concluded, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Sanaullah ordered Khairul into jail.
Khairul had been arrested earlier on Thursday by the Detective Branch of police at his Dhanmondi home.
He was shown arrested in a case filed on Jul 6 this year over the fatal shooting of Jubo Dal activist Abdul Kaiyum Ahad during anti-discrimination protests last year.
Ahad died on Jul 18, 2024, after being shot during clashes in the Kajla area of Jatrabari amid the nationwide movement demanding equal rights and non-discriminatory state policy.
The murder case was filed by Ahad’s father, Alauddin, with Jatrabari Police Station. A total of 467 people were named as accused in the case, including deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Khairul served as the head of the judiciary from Oct 1, 2010, to May 17, 2011.
On May 10, 2011, an Appellate Division bench led by him delivered the verdict declaring the 13th Amendment to the Constitution illegal, effectively abolishing the caretaker government system.
After his retirement, Khairul was appointed chairman of the Law Commission for a three-year term on Jul 23, 2013. He was later reappointed several times following the expiry of that initial term.
Following the fall of the Awami League government in the July Uprising, Khairul resigned from the Law Commission on Aug 13. Several cases were filed against him after that.
