The HC has turned into a criminal court: CJ

Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain. File photo

The High Court is no more a constitutional court now. It has become a criminal court, Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain said yesterday.

"This is not the court [High Court] I had hoped to see before I leave at the end of my service," he said without elaborating.

The chief justice was responding to a plea moved by lawyer Md Ruhul Quddus Kazal to grant bail to a number of convicts in a criminal case. He said this while presiding over a full bench of the Supreme Court's Appellate Division.

Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, who is to retire on December 31, told Ruhul, "We will not grant bail in such a case."

Justice Muhammad Imman Ali, a senior judge of the bench, asked Ruhul why he was seeking bail for his clients from this court when they had earlier lost the case in other courts.

The apex court dropped the bail petition from its cause list.

Contacted, Ruhul told The Daily Star that the chief justice made the comments after he sought bail for his clients who have been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

"We will move the bail petition before the Appellate Division further in January," he said.

Ruhul, however, refused to give details of the case.

Asked about the chief justice's comment, Attorney General AM Amin Uddin refused to comment.

SC lawyer and Editor of Dhaka Law Reports Khurshid Alam Khan said the chief justice perhaps made the comments out of anger or resentment as more and more criminal cases were being moved, heard and disposed of at the HC.

On November 2, Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain questioned the HC orders that granted anticipatory bail in cases involving serious offences, including murder and rape.

"If the High Court grants anticipatory bail even in murder, rape, and heroin [drugs] related cases, then what should we [the Appellate Division] do? Will not we stay those orders? We must protect the country," he said.

"Around 1,000 orders of bail are passed by the High Court in a week. But the state appeals against only 50 to 100 of such orders before the Appellate Division."