A petition has been filed with the apex court for restoring the election-time caretaker government through revoking its 13th constitution-amendment verdict abolishing the system.
The petition was filed Tuesday with Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for a review of its earlier judgment that declared void the 13th amendment which had introduced the system of neutral government assigned to hold free and fair polls.
Civil -society members Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar, Dr Tofail Ahmed, M Hafizuddin Khan, Md Jobirul Hoque Bhuiyan and Zahrah Rahman-who are proponents of electoral-political reforms-moved the apex court with the joint petition.
Lawyer Dr Sharif Bhuiyan and Barrister Tanim Hussain Shawon submitted the petition on behalf of the petitioners.
The petition cites around 14 grounds on which the apex court may consider review of the judgment.
Lawyer Sharif Bhuiyan said, "We have submitted the review petition against the Appellate Division's verdict that has revoked the constitution's 13th amendment which introduced the non-party caretaker-government system in Bangladesh. We will move it before a full bench of this court after its reopening following the upcoming annual vacation."
Both the Appellate and High Court Divisions of the SC are scheduled to go into an annual vacation on September 6 and to reopen on October 20.
Citing the review petition, Sharif Bhuiyan said the caretaker system had been introduced on a political consensus of the people and, therefore, it became a "basic structure of the constitution that cannot be scrapped".
The Appellate Division verdict that cancelled the 13th amendment of the constitution is "self-contradictory" as the court in its short verdict said the next two national elections (10th and 11th parliamentary elections) could be held under caretaker government, but this directive was not mentioned in the full judgment, the lawyer submitted.
Sharif Bhuiyan said if the Appellate Division allows the review petition, the caretaker-government system would be restored in the country for holding national elections.
Earlier on Sunday, chamber judge of the Appellate Division Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam allowed the five citizens to file the petition with the court to seek review of its 2011 judgment.
A seven-member full bench of the Appellate Division headed by the then chief justice, ABM Khairul Haque, by a majority view on May 10, 2011 declared the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (caretaker government) null and void.
Parliament passed the 13th Amendment in 1996. Later, Supreme Court lawyer M Salimullah (now dead) and others filed a writ petition with the High Court in 1998 challenging the validity on this amendment.
The High Court on August 4, 2004 declared the 13th Amendment of the Constitution valid and constitutional.
The HC, however, allowed the writ petitioners to directly file an appeal with the Appellate Division challenging its judgement. The writ petitioners in 2005 appealed before the Appellate Division against the HC verdict.
The Appellate Division then announced the verdict on May 10, 2010, allowing this appeal.
After the verdict was announced, the 15th Amendment Act was passed by the National Parliament on June 30, 2011, bringing several issues, including the abolition of the caretaker-government system. A gazette was published on July 3, 2011.
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