SCBA files review petition

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) yesterday filed a review petition with the Supreme Court against its guidelines for the High Court in granting anticipatory bail to people.
The Appellate Division of the SC issued some guidelines in a verdict on February 24 and expressed disappointment at an HC bench for “failure to follow its guidelines” in giving anticipatory bail to BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain in a money laundering case.
The Appellate Division said the HC had to scrutinise the facts in the FIR with “expected diligence”, and would not grant anticipatory bail “where the allegations are of heinous nature”.
If satisfied in all respects, the HC will dispose of the anticipatory bail applications instantly without issuing any rule, and will not grant such type of bail to an accused for more than four weeks, the judgment said.
“Anticipatory bails shall not survive post-charge sheet stage.”
The HC judges will mention the reasons for granting anticipatory bail to an accused and “shall give reasons for their satisfaction on this unravelling point,” the apex court said.
“Political threshold of the [bail] petitioner or claimed rivalry, by itself, without further ado, shall not be a ground for entertaining an application”.
If allegation of bias is aired against a particular or a group of magistrates or judges, cause of suspicion must be specifically spelt out, said the Appellate Division.
In the review petition, the SCBA said the HC now expressed reluctance to hear anticipatory bail applications following the SC verdict, and as a result, innocent litigants were being victim of police harassment.
The SCBA President Khandker Mahbub Hossain and its Secretary AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon submitted the petition urging the Appellate Division to cancel some of the guidelines, so that the HC could give anticipatory bail to people in false and politically motivated cases.
Chamber judge of the Appellate Division Justice Hasan Foez Siddique sent the review petition to the full bench and fixed July 10 for its hearing.