The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for the Jamaat-e-Islami to get back its registration with the Election Commission as a political party.
Following an appeal filed by Jamaat, the apex court scrapped a 2013 High Court verdict that had declared Jamaat’s registration illegal.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. A four-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, also directed the EC to dispose of the pending issues of Jamaat, including its registration.
Jamaat’s registration as a political party has been reinstated following yesterday’s SC judgment, the party’s lawyer Ehsan A Siddiq told The Daily Star.
The Election Commission will now dispose of other issues, including the party’s election symbol.
The party will now submit an application to the EC for necessary decisions, he said.
Talking to reporters at his office, EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed said the EC had not yet received any directive regarding Jamaat’s registration and election symbol from the court.
Once the EC received the SC order, necessary steps would be taken accordingly, he added.
Jamaat lost the right to contest parliamentary elections as a party after the HC declared its registration with the EC illegal on August 1, 2013, following a writ petition.
Maulana Syed Rezaul Haque Chandpuri, secretary general of the Bangladesh Tariqat Federation, along with 24 others, filed the petition on January 25, 2009, seeking a court order declaring the party’s registration illegal.
The EC subsequently scrapped Jamaat’s registration in October 2018 ahead of the 11th national election.
Jamaat later filed an appeal with the Appellate Division, challenging the HC verdict. The Appellate Division began hearing the appeal on December 3 last year.
No lawyer placed arguments on behalf of the writ petitioners during the hearing before the Appellate Division on this issue.
Jamaat’s registration was snatched through a politically motivated case, said Mohammad Shishir Manir, another lawyer for Jamaat.
Through this verdict of the Appellate Division, the multiparty democratic and participatory parliament will be ensured, he said.
“We asked for a short order. Hopefully, we will get the order within a day or two and will take the short order to the Election Commission. I hope that the commission restores the registration and allocates ‘Daripalla’ (weighing scale) as its [Jamaat’s] election symbol very soon,” he added.
On December 12, 2016, the SC had a full court meeting and decided to request the EC not to allocate the symbol to any political party since it is used as the monogram of the apex court. The then SC authorities on December 14, 2016, sent a letter in this regard to the EC.
The weighing scale was earlier allocated to Jamaat-e-Islami.
Four days before its ouster, the Awami League government banned Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir and others through an executive order. The organisations were prohibited under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009.
The interim government on August 28 last year lifted the ban on Jamaat, Shibir, and all of Jamaat’s front organisations.
Jamaat was first banned in independent Bangladesh in 1972 over their anti-liberation role under a new constitutional provision that banned politics based on religion.
In 1976, the then military government repealed the restriction by issuing a martial law proclamation, allowing the formation and functioning of organisations based on religion.