Law minister Anisul Huq said on Saturday that the law ministry on Sunday would request the Chief Justice to seize the judicial power of the female judge for her observation that a rape case should not be record by the police after 72 hours of the offence.
‘I don’t want to make any comment about the merit of the verdict. But its observation that the police should not record a first information report of a rape case after 72 hours is fully illegal and unconstitutional,’ Anisul Huq told reporters, responding to a question after taking part a discussion to commemorate late senior Supreme Court lawyer Abdul Baset Majumder.
The minister said, ‘For that reason, I will write a letter to the Chief Justice tomorrow for taking action against the judge so that she cannot perform the judicial duty.’
On Thursday, the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 in Dhaka acquitted five youths, including Apan Jewellers owner’s son Shafat Ahmed, of the charge of raping two university students at Raintree Dhaka hotel in the capital’s Banani in 2017.
The tribunal judge Mosammat Kamrun Nahar opined in the verdict that the police should not record a rape case if it was not reported within 72 hours of the occurrence.
Rights activists and lawyers criticised the tribunal’s observation and people from different walks of life had also brought out a procession from Shahbagh in Dhaka early Friday in protest against the tribunal’s observation.
