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Published : 28 Jul 2026, 01:22 PM
The Appellate Division will decide on Wednesday whether to stay a High Court verdict that declared the candidacy of BNP nominee Sarwar Alamgir valid for the 13th parliamentary election from the Chattogram-2 constituency.
On Tuesday, a four-member Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury set the date for the order.
The other members of the bench are Justice Md Rezaul Haque, Justice SM Emdadul Hoque, and Justice Farah Mahbub.
Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Muhammad Nurul Amin, who is contesting in the same constituency, filed the petition with the Appellate Division on Jul 12 seeking a stay on the High Court verdict.
The following day, on Jul 13, the plea was placed before the chamber court of the Appellate Division.
The chamber court then fixed Jul 19 for a hearing before the Appellate Division’s regular bench.
Although the court was expected to pass its order on Tuesday, the top court deferred the matter until Wednesday after further consideration.
However, even before the Jamaat candidate filed the petition, BNP candidate Sarwar had taken oath as a member of parliament on Jul 9.
On Tuesday, Amin was represented during the hearing by lawyers Md Shishir Manir and Azim Uddin Patwari.
BNP candidate Sarwar, meanwhile, was represented by lawyers Ahsanul Karim and AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon.
Speaking to bdnews24.com after the hearing, Azim said: "On behalf of the petitioner, we asked the court to stay the operation of the High Court's judgment and to issue an order restraining [Sarwar] from attending any sitting of the parliament."
Ahead of the Feb 12 election, the returning officer had declared Sarwar's nomination valid during the scrutiny of nomination papers.
Jamaat candidate Nurul appealed to the Election Commission (EC), alleging that the BNP leader was a loan defaulter.
Following a hearing, the EC accepted the appeal on Jan 18 and cancelled Sarwar's nomination.
Challenging the decision, Sarwar filed a writ petition with the High Court on Jan 19.
After a preliminary hearing, the High Court stayed the EC's decision.
The Jamaat-backed candidate then appealed to the Appellate Division against the High Court's order.
After a hearing on Feb 3, the Appellate Division granted leave to appeal and ruled that Sarwar could contest the February election.
It, however, directed that the result for the constituency must not be published until the case was finally disposed of.
In the election, Sarwar won with 138,545 votes, while his nearest rival, Nurul, received 62,160 votes.
But in line with the Supreme Court's directive, the EC withheld publication of the official gazette, preventing Sarwar from taking the oath of office.
Sarwar later applied to the Appellate Division seeking permission for the election result to be published and for him to take the oath as a member of parliament.
On Jun 16, the Appellate Division sent the case back to the High Court, directing it to dispose of the rule within two weeks.
After the final hearing, the High Court delivered its judgment on Jul 9, declaring the EC's decision to cancel Sarwar's nomination illegal.
On the day the judgment was delivered, Nurul's lawyer Shishir Manir said they would appeal after receiving the full written copy of the verdict.
However, later that same day, the EC Secretariat published the official gazette declaring Sarwar the winner, and he took the oath as a member of parliament that evening.
Before the full text of the judgment had been released, Shishir sent a legal notice to the EC challenging the legality of both the gazette notification and the oath-taking ceremony.
He said: "No copy of the High Court judgment had been issued. The judgment had not been written or signed, and no court documents had been communicated to the Election Commission. Suddenly, we heard that it was going to publish the gazette."
Against this backdrop, Nurul filed a fresh application with the chamber court of the Appellate Division on Jul 12, seeking a stay on the operation of the High Court judgment and an order barring Sarwar from attending parliamentary sittings.
