Chief justice Syed Mahmud Hossain on Sunday morning suspended the judicial powers of judge Mosammat Kamrun Nahar for penning a verdict in which she asked the police not to record a rape case after 72 hours of the offence.
The chief justice suspended the judicial powers of the judge for the time being,’ Supreme Court spokesman Mohammad Saifur Rahman said.
The chief justice also asked the law ministry to send a written proposal to the Supreme Court’s General Administration Committee for getting its final approval over the decision as per the constitution.
Court sources told New Age that Mosammat Kamrun Nahar, the judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 in Dhaka came to her chamber at the court in the morning but she refrained from sitting in courtroom as the decision of suspending her judicial powers was broadcasted in different media in the morning.
The chief justice’s decision came a day after the law minister Anisul Huq told reporters at a discussion that the ministry would request the chief justice to take action against judge Kamrun Nahar for making an ‘illegal and unconstitutional observation’.
The minister made the comment after taking part in a discussion organised by Bangabandhu Awami Ainjibi Parishad Paribar commemorating late senior Supreme Court lawyer Abdul Baset Majumder.
The law minister called the tribunal’s observation as illegal’ and ‘unconstitutional’, stating that there was no timeframe in the Code of Criminal Procedure for filing a case for a criminal offence.
On Thursday, Kamrun Nahar, as the judge of Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 in Dhaka, made the observation about the time framing of filing a rape case after acquitting 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 area in 2017.
The tribunal found that the Banani rape case was filed after 38 days of the reported incident and no scientific evidence could complement the allegation.
Rights activists and lawyers criticised the tribunal’s observation and people from different walks of life also brought out a procession from Shahbagh in Dhaka early Friday protesting at the observation of the tribunal.
