Bangladesh News

The High Court (HC) yesterday stayed for three months a gazette notification of the Election Commission (EC) finalising the re-demarcation of parliamentary constituencies.

The HC bench of Justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Mashuque Hosain Ahmed also issued a rule on the government and the EC to show causes in two weeks as to why the July 10 gazette should not be declared unconstitutional and illegal.

The bench issued the rule following a writ petition by former BNP state minister Abdul Mannan on August 6 challenging the gazette that brought changes to 84 of the 133 constituencies the commission had provisionally re-demarcated on April 29.

MA Mannan and ABM Nurul Islam, a senior lawyer at the Supreme Court, had challenged the April 29 EC gazette in two separate writ petitions following which the High Court asked the government and the EC to explain why the move should not be declared illegal and unconstitutional.

The EC, however, published the July 10 gazette amid pending HC rules.

Petitioner Mannan’s counsel barrister Rafiqul Islam Mia told the court that Article 122 of the constitution and the Electoral Roll (Amendment) Ordinance 2007 require that the authorities redraw the constituencies before the voter list is prepared so people could decide in advance in which constituency they would get registered as voters.

“The Election Commission has re-demarcated the constituencies after over 99 percent of the voter list was complete, violating the constitution,” he said.

He further argued that the July 10 gazette is also unconstitutional and illegal as the EC published it without saying how it had disposed of the objections raised by the voters over the delimitation process.

Barrister Rafiqul told reporters that the gazette notification re-designing the country’s constituencies prior to 2001 elections would now remain in force following the HC order.

Chief election commissioner (CEC), two election commissioners, secretary at the EC secretariat and principal secretary to the chief adviser have been asked to respond to the HC rule.

Earlier, the two petitioners challenging the April 29 gazette had alleged that the commission re-demarcated the constituencies after more than 70 percent of the voter list was complete.

Barrister Nasiruddin Ahmed Asim and barrister Mehnaz Mannan assisted barrister Mia.