Probe starts for 'misconduct'

The Supreme Judicial Council has started investigating the alleged misconduct of High Court Judge Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, Supreme Court sources said yesterday.
Constituted by the chief justice, the council last week issued a notice asking Justice Mizanur to explain to it about the allegation raised against him.
The sources, however, could not say how much time Mizanur has been given and whether he has to appear before the council.
The allegations of misconduct came when the judge distributed a report, published in the daily Inqilab on February 17, among the judges of the High Court (HC) and the Supreme Court (SC).
SC employees Jamadar Siddiqur Rahman Hawlader and Nurul Alam Babu carried the envelopes with the report to the recipients the following day.
The report was on the alleged blog posts of Shahbagh movement activist Ahmed Rajib Haidar and it termed him an atheist.
Rajib was brutally murdered near his Palash Nagar residence in the capital's Pallabi on February 15.
Asked about the council's proceedings, SC Registrar AKM Shamsul Islam yesterday told The Daily Star that he did not know anything in this regard.
Meanwhile, the SC authorities yesterday transferred Siddiqur from the chamber office of Justice Mizanur to a section office of the apex court.
Siddiqur said the authorities verbally asked him to work at the court-keeper section, but he did not know the reason for his transfer.
President Zillur Rahman on February 25 ordered Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain to constitute the council to investigate the allegation.
Comprising the chief justice and two other senior SC judges, the Supreme Judicial Council investigates allegations of misconduct of any judge and makes necessary recommendations to the president.
This is the second judicial council to probe allegation against an HC judge.
Mizanur was appointed as an additional judge of the HC on July 29, 2002 and his job was confirmed two years later.
Earlier in 2004, HC Additional Judge Syed Shahidur Rahman was removed from office on the basis of the first ever judicial council's probe into a judge's misconduct and its recommendations.
Shahidur was charged with taking a bribe of Tk 50,000 to give bail to an accused in a women repression case.