The High Court today cleared the way for the tribunal concerned to run trial proceedings against photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol -- in three cases filed under the Digital Security Act.
The HC rejected three separate petitions filed by Kajol, seeking to quash the trial proceedings.
The bench of Justice ASM Abdul Mobin and Justice Mohi Uddin Shamim passed the rejection order considering the petitions were not presented properly, Deputy Attorney General Sujit Chatterjee told The Daily Star.
He also said there is no legal bar for the tribunal concerned to run the trial proceedings of the cases following the HC order.
Lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua appeared for Kajol during virtual hearing of the petitions.
A Dhaka tribunal on November 8 last year framed charges against Kajol in the three cases filed under the Digital Security Act.
Awami League lawmaker (Magura-1) Saifuzzaman Shikhor, Jubo Mahila League's central committee members Usmin Ara Belly and Sumaiya Chowdhury Bonya filed three separate cases with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Hazaribagh and Kamrangirchar police stations under the DSA on March 9, 10 and 11 in 2020.
Investigation Officer Mohammad Russell Mollah, also a Sub-Inspector of Detective Branch of police, submitted three charge sheets of the cases to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka on April 8, February 4 and March 14 last year respectively.
Kajol was charged with circulating indecent, defamatory, objectionable, and fake information about some ministers, lawmakers, and top Jubo Mahila League leaders on Facebook in the cases.
Kajol went missing on March 10, 2020. The Border Guard Bangladesh found him roaming around the Benapole border area on May 3 the same year and detained him. He was sent to jail by a Jashore court the same day under section 54 of the Code of the Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Later, he was shown arrested in the three cases filed under the DSA.
The lower court denied him bail for seven months until the High Court on November 24, 2020 granted him bail in one of the cases. The HC on December 17, 2020 granted him bail in two other cases after Kajol's lawyer argued that probes had to be completed within 75 days of filing of the cases, and the investigators failed to do so.
The photojournalist walked out of jail on bail on December 25, 2020.
