Food Minister Qamrul Islam and Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq have paid the fines the Supreme Court slapped on them for contempt.
Published : 03 Apr 2016, 01:05 AM
Their lawyers confirmed to bdnews24.com that the payments have been made following the Appellate Division’s order on Saturday.
The ministers would have to serve seven days in jail if they did not pay the fines.
Qamrul’s lawyer Syed Sumon Mahbub said Tk 25,000 was paid to the Islamia Eye Hospital and Tk 25,000 to the Liver Foundation of Bangladesh on Thursday after getting the copy of the court order on Wednesday.
“Now we are waiting for the full order. We will take a decision on a review petition after getting it,” he said.
Mozammel’s lawyer Barrister Rafique-Ul Haque also said the fines had been paid.
On Mar 27, an eight-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha fined the two ministers rejecting their petitions offering unreserved apology and seeking mercy for their comments on war criminal Mir Quasem Ali’s appeal hearing.
Qamrul had demanded at a roundtable discussion of Ekatturer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee in Dhaka on Mar 5 that a new bench, excluding Chief Justice Sinha, should hear Mir Quasem’s appeal against his death sentence.
Justice Sinha’s displeasure over the functioning of the International Crimes Tribunal’s investigators and prosecutors in the war crimes cases, including the one against Mir Quasem, had been perceived by Islam as a 'broad hint' that the war criminal’s death penalty might not be upheld.
Mozammel had also criticised the chief justice at the same programme.