Additional Judge of the High Court Justice Faisal Mahmud Faizee took the bench yesterday, 160 days after he had stayed off the judicial work amid a boycott by a large section of Supreme Court lawyers.

Pro-government lawyers joined his court, but Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) continued its boycott that began on October 30 last year to protest the judge's alleged tampering with his LLB exam results.

Chief Justice (CJ) Syed JR Mudassir Husain has convened a meeting of SCBA presidents, both sitting and former, at 2:00pm today after a delegation of senior lawyers led by SCBA President Advocate Mahbubey Alam met and asked him yesterday not to allow Faizee to take the bench.

The SCBA will stage a sit-in today in front of Faizee's court in protest.

Two major dailies Prothom Alo and Bhorer Kagoj on October 30 first ran reports on Justice Faizee's alleged tampering with the marksheet of the LLB examinations he had sat from Chittagong Law College in 1989.

Faizee is one of the 19 additional judges whose appointment on August 23 last year drew sharp criticism from different quarters.

The chief justice on October 31 last year asked Faizee not to sit on his two-member HC Division Bench after senior judge of the bench Justice Ali Asgar declined to sit with him and lawyers threatened to boycott the court. Justice Faizee later went on leave.

Faizee's father filed a contempt case with the High Court against the two newspapers and the court convicted the reporters concerned, editors and publishers of the dailies of contempt. The editor and a reporter of Bhorer Kagoj appealed against the judgement and the matter is now pending with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.

Faizee sat at his court at 10:43am yesterday after the chief justice had asked him to run a single bench at court room No. 24 of the Supreme Court annex building.

The SCBA leaders, however, hung a notice of boycott in front of his court in the morning to protest the allocation of the bench to Faizee. Pro-government lawyers later tore the notice up.

The SCBA president, its Secretary Enayetur Rahim and former presidents Barrister Shawkat Ali Khan, Advocate Abdul Baset Majumder, Barrister Shafique Ahmed and Advocate Ozaer Faruq met the chief justice at his office around 1:30pm.

"We've requested the chief justice not to allocate (Faizee) bench until the controversy regarding his LLB certificate ends," Mahbubey Alam told reporters.

"We've informed the chief justice about our association's decision of boycotting his (Faizee) court," the SCBA president added.

Prior to meeting the chief justice, the SCBA met at an emergency meeting where it decided to go ahead with the boycott programme and stage a sit-in today.

Barrister Azmalul Hossain, the counsel for Faizee's father in the contempt case, welcomed Faizee in the morning and said he was glad to see Faizee return to court.

Faizee expressed his gratitude to the Almighty and said: "It is great a day for the judicial system."