High Court injunction on National Press Club executive committee’s operations halted

The chamber judge of the Supreme Court has halted a High Court injunction banning operations of the National Press Club’s executive committee formed without elections.

Justice Hasan Foez Siddique issued the eight-week stay order hours after the High Court ordered a six-month ban on Thursday.

Syed Abdal Ahmad, general secretary of the expired committee, took out the injunction from Justice Sharif Uddin Chaklader against the new committee.

Awami League-backed Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman was made president and BNP-backed Kamrul Islam Chowdhury general secretary on May 28.

Rahman and his associates then moved the chamber judge seeking a stay on the earlier order.

Several BNP-affiliated journalists claim the new committee, that has journalists affiliated to the ruling Awami League, the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, has been constituted illegally.

Kamal Uddin Sabuj and Ahmad-led committee’s tenure expired on Dec 31 last year but they did not call election citing complexities.

On May 28, two groups supported by the Awami League and the BNP constituted an executive committee based on ‘compromise’.

The 17-strong committee has seven BNP-affiliated journalists, who were later ‘expelled’ from a forum led by Shawkat Mahmud, chief of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists.

Mahmud, also a former Press Club president, is on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s advisory panel.

The BNP-backed faction has rejected the new committee and been holding protest programmes.

Initiators of the new committee, on the other hand, allege that Mahmud-led forum was using the Press Club as a ‘political office’.

High Court injunction on operation of new Press Club executive committee for six months

National Press Club gets executive committee of 'compromise' without election