Untold Facts

Intimidating the Judges: Keeping up their Evil Tradition

SHUVOBUDHHI
A verbatim statement in Bengali language of a powerful minister and government party stalwart published in a Dhaka daily on the 16th August (09) said, ‘ASHA KORI BICHAROKDER SHUVABUDHHIR UDAI HOBE’ (the judges would have right sense of knowledge for delivering justice). He was clearly and pointedly referring to the Supreme Court Bench under constitution at this time for hearing appeal in the 15th August 1975 case.

Judges are not populist politicians
Judges of the higher courts, in particular, are not only learned men and women in law but also having had long experience in the legal profession and in delivering justice. However, they are not practicing populist politicians banking on cheap slogans or hearsay but are solely guided by documented legal maxims, codes, due process of law and above all their legal mind and conscience. Thus politicians’ populist rhetoric may or may not fully fit into the ‘right sense of knowledge’ of the highly learned judges, and so the minister’s SHUVABUDHHI may not go in full agreement of the judges in the particular appeal hearing. And if that does not, what the minister and his government would do? A right answer to this question may be had in their black and disgraceful illegal tradition they had set in in the same case during 1996-2001.

Not Killers
If one may recall back, one must discover rightly that the case in question was a concocted one as it was the case of a successful army coup associated with some unfortunate blood letting not of one but of both sides and thus was not any of cognizable offence in law. Because, army coup that does not fail but succeeds is itself a legal mode for change of hands of government. Blood letting in any such victorious coup is automatically indemnified. That was what it had been the 15th August 1975 coup of Dhaka. The ‘murder’ case so framed up after 21 years in late 1996 failed to meet legal basis as it cancelled through simple majority vote not through two third as it constitutionally needed for the matter being part of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution. Thus the case had gross lapses ab initio. The case then went on to three levels having had not only the basic lapse but also bypassed the fundamental issue that it happened to be a matter not of failed but of victorious coup that in itself by law remained automatically indemnified. Further that the coup provided legal basis for future enactment of laws and amendment of the State Constitution just as the 5th Amendment came to be enacted in April 1979.

Miscarriage of Justice
That the net and final verdict in the case so far until 2000 giving death sentence to 12 of the accused among 15 of the death sentence passed ‘in firing squad’ in the first session judge court in November 1998 were all nothing but gross miscarriage of justice leading to judicial murder of the victorious coup makers had been rightly commented upon so by at least three judges of the higher courts of the country, two of the High Court (daily Independent, Dhaka, 26 March 2002, and daily Amardesh etc, Dhaka, 16 August 2008) including a former chief justice in 2001 in an interview with the British BBC Bengali Radio Service on the 26th march 2001.

Gladly Accepted and Allegiance given
It is well known further that the coup had no resistance at all but instead enjoyed jubilant support of the people for they felt relieved and due allegiance of all the State organs soon after the coup succeeded in mid August 1975. The outside world and big powers like China, Saudi Arabia etc who did not even recognize Bangladesh before the coup in over three and a half years came in support after according recognition and in assistance of the post coup government of Khondoker Moustaque Ahmad.

Legitimacy and Continuity
How could one legitimize the continuance of Bangladesh since mid August 1975 for about 35 years now if the coup is now termed and adjudged a simple murder case and the coup operators put to gallows? Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh in her first term (1996-2001) started the silly case that would have no end in itself but to possible return to the 1975 January vicious dictatorial political scenario of the BAKSAL of her late lamented father Sheikh Mujib who unleashed reign of terror through extra-judicial killing of innocent thousands (one for example, Seraj Sikder of Sarbahara Party killed on the 2nd January 1975 that the topmost leader boasted for openly in the floor of the Parliament) perpetrated by the unconstitutional and India sponsored killer RAKHI BAHINI now being orchestrating to bury once again the multi-party democracy and pluralism for which the people had long fought for and wished to enjoy in the society in perpetuity. Extra-judicial killings had also been perpetrated by private hoodlums led by the top leader’s own close relations as one, for example, the 23 September 1973 brutal killing of seven young students of the Dhaka University at the campus of the Mohsin Hall.

Who’s SHUVOBUDHHI?
She had all foolishness not only to lodge the ‘murder’ case but also in intimidating the judges of the courts during those five years well documented in the past before they offered verdict and again after the verdicts that partly was not up to their liking. One hears now the same intimidation tactics they began in the wake of beginning the hearing of the appeal in the Supreme Court. The party in power as it is there in the verbatim wished to have a verdict that they would love to hear from and that they would only then term such verdict as of the ‘SHUVOBUDHHI’ of the judges and not otherwise!

Author: Dr. M.T. Hussain