The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has stayed a High Court verdict that issued four directives for the lower courts concerned regarding cancellation of the bail granted by the HC to the accused.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain passed the stay order today following a petition filed by the state seeking a stay on the HC judgement.
The stay order will continue till disposal of the leave to appeal petition which will be filed by the state challenging the HC verdict, Attorney General AM Amin Uddin told The Daily Star.
He also said the apex court is expected to give final directive on this issue after disposing of the leave to appeal petition against the HC judgement.
In the full text verdict released in September last year, the HC issued four directives for the lower courts concerned over cancellation of the bail by the HC to the accused and ordered the SC registrar general to issue a circular to this effect.
"The courts below shall not cancel the bail of an accused granted by the High Court Division without any allegation of proven misuse of the privilege of bail by the accused," the HC said in a full text of its judgement.
The HC bench of Justice Md Habibul Gani and Justice Md Badruzzaman had delivered the verdict on October 23, 2019 on an appeal filed challenging a lower court order that cancelled the HC bail of an accused.
In the full text of verdict, the HC said, "When an accused is enjoying the privilege of ad-interim bail granted by the High Court Division for a limited period in a pending rule under Section 498 of CrPC or in an appeal under special law and he or she is regularly appearing before the court below, his or her bail shall not be cancelled and he or she cannot be taken into jail custody by the court below only on the ground that he or she could not submit bail extension order from the High Court Division."
"In the event of unavailability of such extension order, the courts below must wait for the result of the rule or the appeal, as the case may be in which the accused was granted ad-interim bail," the HC bench also said.
"The learned judges of the courts below shall not cancel bail of an accused granted by the High Court Division in pending rule or appeal until or unless the rule is discharged or the appeal is dismissed or in any way the accused violates any condition of bail, if any, imposed by the High Court Division at the time of granting bail," the full text of HC verdict added.
