HC summons two SC lawyers for 'contempt'
The High Court yesterday summoned Supreme Court lawyer Tawfique Nawaz, husband of former foreign minister Dipu Moni, and three others before it on charges of criticising one of its judgments “contemptuously” and for "not complying with its directives".
Tawfique and another SC lawyer SM Munir and their clients Prof Taslima Begum, chairman of Dhaka Education Board, and SM Wahiduzzaman, the board's examination controller, will have to appear before the HC by 10:30am on May 19.
According to a contempt petition, the two lawyers contemptuously commented on a judgement it passed on the petition of an HSC candidate who only failed in the practical part of chemistry examination and applied to the board for re-evaluation of the answer script.
The January 29 verdict reads, "...So she should be deemed to have passed in all the papers, since she was shown just to have failed in practical component of Chemistry, otherwise, she would have passed, as such, she reserves the right to ask reexamination, if she yet chooses to do so.”
In a reply on behalf of his clients on April 3, Tawfique said the HC judgement contained “several gross errors of facts and law” and had failed to consider the legal submission made on behalf of the education board.
More than two weeks later, on April 20, SM Munir said in his reply that the HC observation was "ineffectual”, “redundant” and “unenforceable”.
Following the HC judgment, Farah Tasnim Raisa, a student of Dhaka City College, prayed for re-evaluation again on March 25 but to no avail. Her first application, before she went to court, was rejected on grounds that the board regulations do not allow such re-evaluation, Raisa's lawyer Ahsanur Rahman told The Daily Star.
The student on April 22 submitted a contempt petition to the HC against the four along with the remarks made by Tawfique and Munir.
After hearing the petition yesterday, Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice ABM Altaf Hossain passed the order. Their bench also asked the four to explain why contempt proceedings should not be brought against them for contemptuously criticising the judgment and not complying with the "directives" for the answer script re-evaluation.
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