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Published : 10 Mar 2014, 09:21 PM
Khan submitted his affidavit on Monday after the court issued a contempt rule against him and the editor of the Bengali daily on Mar 2.
The bench of Justices Naima Haider and Zafar Ahmed is hearing the matter.
Khan and Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman were supposed to submit the affidavits of their explanations by 2:30pm, when the hearing was scheduled to restart.
At the beginning of the hearing, the court inquired about the affidavits. An associate of the defence counsel Shahdeen Malik then told the court: “The affidavits are being prepared. It will be submitted in a few moments.”
Khan’s lawyer pleaded to the court to allow his client to be seated while being in the dock saying he was not in good shape.
“We have already heard that he (Khan) has diabetes, but did you submit any medical certificate over his physical illness?” one of the judges asked the defence counsel.
The answer was negative.
Khan had to spend the next two and a half hours of the hearing standing there.
The hearing started with the statements of lawyer Md Asad Ullah.
“Freedom of speech does not mean total freedom. My right is up to that extent which does not hamper others’ rights,” he said quoting from the Constitution.
Citing the instance of daily Amar Desh’s acting Editor Mahmudur Rahman, he said, “That article was not calculative while each and every word of this article is calculative; meant to destroy the institution.
“If Mahmudur Rahman is sentenced for six months then in the case of Mizanur Rahman Khan it should six years.”
Lawyer ABM Waliur Rahman Khan then presented his arguments before the bench.
At 2:55pm, the court once again inquired about the affidavits. Moments later, defence counsel Malik entered the court and submitted the affidavits.
The court then questioned the procedure followed to submit the affidavits.
The defendant needed to sign himself in the affidavit against a contempt rule and no-one else’s signature will do, said the court.
A third person has signed the affidavits of Khan and Rahman.
The court enquired about the matter and asked Shahdeen Malik, “What did you do?”
Ahsanul Karim at the time said, “Sometimes he (Khan) says that he wants to apologise. Again, sometimes he wants to contest. What does he want to do?”
At the hearing, Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud said, “He (Khan) challenged your (court) ruling in his explanation. In the explanation, he said the reason behind issuing the rule was not clear. But the court in its rule has specifically mentioned the reasons.”
Then the court said, “This is contempt (of court) again.”
As Barrister Mahmud said that explanations of some 20 lines were given in Khan’s article, Shahdeen Malik opposed saying, “Explanations have been given for each of the lines.”
On being confirmed twice by Malik about the explanations, Mahmud said, “If the court didn’t specify the contempt of court rule, then how did he (Khan) realise that he needed to explain each of the lines of the article? That means the whole article was contemptuous.”
Mahmud continued: “He (Khan) wants to say that his writings were correct. He wrote another article while writing the explanations. He has lost his senses after seeing the court proceedings. This cannot happen to a person who is in the right frame of mind.”
Barrister Mahmud also referred to some other inconsistencies in Mizanur Rahman Khan’s explanation.
Malik then took permission from the court to consult Khan and said, “The explanation has been attached mistakenly with the affidavit. We’ll correct it.”
The comment took the court by surprise as it could barely believe it could be the response to the contempt ruling. “Do articles get published by mistake?”
At one point, the court said, “You’ve already submitted it to us. Tomorrow (Tuesday), the two defendants must sign their explanations and submit those to the court in the form of affidavit.”
Khan in his article had said that ‘at least 400 people’ had secured bail. In his explanation, he said this information was ‘conservative estimated data’.
At the end of the hearing, the court said they found both Khan and Matiur Rahman’s affidavits nearly similar.
“We are not sure whether he (Rahman) fully understood (the matter) before submitting that. We want to hear that from himself whether he submitted that after understanding the consequences.”
“That’s why Matiur Rahman will have to come to the court on Tuesday and confirm that this is his explanation,” the court said.
