SC stays HC verdict to transfer Sakhipur UNO, OC

The Supreme Court today stayed for four weeks a portion of the High Court verdict that ordered the government to transfer Tangail’s Sakhipur Upazila Nirbahi Officer Mohammad Rafiqul Islam and Sakhipur Police Station's officer-in-charge Mohammad Maksudul Alam.

The HC had passed the order on UNO Rafiqul and OC Maksudul on charge of torturing Sabbir Shikder, a ninth-grader of Protima Bonki Public High School in Sakhipur upazila, in the custody.

Chamber Judge of the SC’s Appellate Division Justice Hasan Foez Siddique passed the stay order following two separate petitions filed by Rafiqul and Maksudul seeking a stay on the HC order for their transfer.

The chamber judge also asked them to file separate leave to appeal petitions with the SC against the HC verdict in four weeks.

The apex court has stayed the portion of the HC verdict which only relates to the transfer of the UNO and OC, Nurul Islam Sujan, a lawyer for OC Maksudul, told The Daily Star.

Earlier, a mobile court led by UNO Rafiqul sentenced the schoolboy Sabbir to two years’ imprisonment under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act for reportedly threatening a lawmaker via Facebook.

The Daily Star on September 20 published a report under the headline “Boy jailed for FB comment about MP”.

Quoting the UNO and the OC, the report said UNO Rafiqul, also an executive magistrate, passed the order a day after police detained the boy following the filing of a general diary by Anupam Shahjahan, a lawmaker of Tangail-8 (Basail-Sakhipur) constituency.

Following the report, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Ashish Ranjan Das on September 20 issued the suomoto rule and asked the UNO and the OC to appear before it on September 27 and explain as to why a schoolboy was sentenced to two years' in jail under the ICT act.

Delivering verdict on the suomoto rule, the bench on October 18 declared the mobile court verdict against Sabbir illegal.

The HC acquitted the schoolboy [Sabbir] from the case and directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Tangail to launch a judicial enquiry based on his statement before it on September 27.

In his statement, Sabbir alleged that MP Anupam Shahjahan, UNO Rafiqul and OC Maksudul had tortured him.

The HC bench also directed the secretaries of public administration and home ministries and the inspector general of police to withdraw the UNO Rafiqul and the OC Maksudul from Sakhipur and place them outside Dhaka division “for a fair investigation”.