No opportunity to ban Awami League, says Attorney General Asaduzzaman

Many political issues were dragged to the court in the past, for which we had to pay the price, he says

Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman has appealed to the High Court to dismiss a writ petition seeking a ban on the Awami League and the cancellation of the party’s electoral registration for the alleged indiscriminate killing of students during the quota reform movement.

A High Court bench led by Justices AKM Asaduzzaman and Mahbub Ul Islam heard the petition on Tuesday.

At the hearing, the attorney general said there is no opportunity to ban the party and the interim government has no intentions of doing so.

On Aug 19, Arifur Rahman Murad Bhuiyan, executive director of the rights group SARDA Society, filed a writ petition seeking the ban.

Asaduzzaman said: “The interim government has not taken any decision to ban any political party. The government will not curtail the power of political parties given in the Constitution.

“People have suffered a lot under the previous government,” he told the court. “Many were ‘picked up’ or murdered. There are laws and courts to deal with these.”

"But there are many good leaders of Awami League as well. They hold the ideology of the party. There is no opportunity to ban the party. The government does not want to curtail their political rights. "

The attorney general added: "The petitioner has no right to appeal. The Awami League was not made a defendant in the writ. The regulations of SARDA, the organisation which filed the writ, also does not allow it.”

"Many political issues have been dragged to the court in the past, for which we had to pay the price. The uprising has affected the judiciary as well. That's why politics should remain in the street

"Let the writ [plea] be dismissed immediately and a fine be imposed on the petitioner."

Later, the court set Sept 1 for next hearing after the writ petitioner sought time to make Awami League a party to the case.