The Supreme Court yesterday extended till March 15 the bail of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in three
vandalism cases.
A five-member bench led by Chief Justice S K Sinha passed the order after the hearing on a leave-to-appeal petition, filed earlier on February 15 by the lawyers of Mirza Fakhrul.
The court also ordered the BNP leader to surrender before the lower court within 15 days.
Additional attorney general Murad Reza stood for the state in the hearing while Rafiqul Haque and Joynul Abedin argued for Fakhrul.
On November 24, 2015, the High Court granted three months bail to Fakhrul in the three vandalism cases.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court accepted the fresh affidavit explanation of the BNP leader’s recent remarks on the judiciary.
On February 25, the Supreme Court rejected his earlier submission in this connection and ordered him to submit a fresh one along with newspaper
reports by Monday.
On February 22, Alamgir submitted an affidavit explanation following a Supreme Court
order issued earlier.
On acceptance of the explanation in yesterday’s hearing, the Supreme Court observed that lawyers and politicians ought not to come up with remarks that can disparage the faith of the people on the judiciary.
The Supreme Court also reminded that the judiciary is not part of the government, but of the state.
On February 7, speaking at a function in Sylhet, Alamgir accused the government of
controlling the judiciary.
“All the democratic institutions have been destroyed in a planned way. There’s no democracy in the country and the judiciary is not independent,” he said.