HC stay sought on Bar Council polls

Two separate writ petitions were filed with the High Court yesterday seeking stay on election to Bangladesh Bar Council, the highest body for regulating the country's lawyers, scheduled to be held on May 27.

The petitioner has also prayed to the court to direct the government to form an ad hoc committee to run the council, saying the tenure of its existing committee will expire on May 31.

One of the petitions, submitted by Supreme Court lawyer Eunus Ali Akond, stated that there are anomalies in the existing voters' list of the council.

Another petition also filed by him challenged the legality of the amendment to the Bangladesh Bar Council Act 1972 that had allowed a lawyer to cast 14 votes for total 14 posts of executive members of the council.

The government has brought the amendment to the law in 2003 incorporating rules that the lawyers of the Supreme Court, Khagrachhari, Bandarban and Rangamati bar associations can cast seven votes each and other lawyers of the remaining 73 bar associations can cast eight votes each, Eunus said in the petition.

He also said that the government has amended the Bar Council law of 1972 but did not bring any change in its rules under which a lawyer can still now cast 14 votes.

The rules of 1972 law and the amended law of 2003 are contradictory, Eunus mentioned.

The HC will hold hearing on the petitions today, he told The Daily Star.

Bar council sources said names of 48,465 lawyers have been registered for casting their votes.

The council authorities have found that around 1,000 lawyers' names have been registered as voters multiple times and 623 lawyers appealed to the council to remove the repetition of their names.