DHAKA, 10 November 2004 — Two leading vernacular dailies of Bangladesh face contempt charges for reporting the scandal of additional judge of the high court Faisal Mahmud Faizee who was withdrawn from the bench on Oct. 31 following the reports.
The high court issued a ruling upon editors, publishers and reporters concerned of daily Prothom Alo and Bhorer Kagaj to explain within two weeks why contempt proceedings should not be drawn against them for ‘malicious’ reports that undermined the judiciary, court officials said in Dhaka yesterday. A bench comprising Justice M.A. Matin and Justice A.F.M. Abdur Rahman asked them to appear in person before the court on Nov. 24 when the contempt petition will come up for hearing.
Muhammad Faiz, a lawyer and father of additional judge Faizee, filed the petition.
Moving the petition, Barrister Ajmalul Hossain submitted that the reports published in the two dailies on Oct. 30 were ‘false and motivated’ with a design to political gains at the behest of vested quarters. Political opponents resorted to malign and harass the judge that also tarnished the image of the judiciary, he said.
Dismissing the reports of the two dailies, the counsel submitted that the LLB results or certificate of Faizee had never been canceled or recalled, nor those were withheld or interfered by the university authority.
The media had widely reported alleged tampering by Faizee with his LLB mark sheet and reducing his Secondary School Certificate examination certificate age by two years while obtaining enrolment certificate for legal profession.
Faizee is one of 19 additional judges appointed in August last that drew flak from within and without the bench and bar. The critics had said the appointment was made on mere political consideration ignoring efficiency and personal integrity.
Meanwhile, two inquiry committees of the Chittagong District Bar Association formed to investigate the incident of forging mark sheets of 111 law students in the initial report found inconsistency in the marksheets of 29 association members, including Faizee.
The two committees named the members with forged marksheets at a special general meeting of the association Monday afternoon. The association president, Ibrahim Hossain Babul, presided over the meeting.
The committees sought 15 more days to complete the report after investigation of the marksheets of more than 2,000 association members. The meeting decided to send the names of such members to the Bangladesh Bar Council for legal action, sources present at the meeting said.
“We decided to send the names of the holders of forged marksheets to the bar council based on the initial report. The full list of names will be sent after the final report,” the association general secretary, Monotosh Barua, told newsmen.
