Gazipur City Polls: Petitioner plays trick to obtain stay order

Suruj

An Awami League leader of Savar upazila has played tricks on a High Court bench to get the Gazipur City Corporation polls stayed for three months.

His ploy resulted in postponement of the election scheduled for May 15 and forced both Awami League and BNP mayoral candidates to rush to the Supreme Court with petitions against the stay order issued by the HC.

The full bench of the Appellate Division may hold hearing on the appeals today as the chamber judge yesterday sent it both the petitions.

Savar AL leader ABM Azharul Islam Suruj, also chairman of Shimulia Union Parishad, proceeded in a planned way to have the scheduled election postponed, The Daily Star has learnt by talking to his lawyers and analysing court documents.    

On April 2, he first filed a writ petition with the HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Zafar Ahmed, challenging inclusion of some areas of his union parishad in the Gazipur city. The court rejected his plea.

A week later, he moved the HC bench of Justice Tariq ul Hakim and Justice M Faruque and filed another writ petition on the same ground. The same day, on April 10, the HC rejected his writ plea saying it could affect the mayoral polls.

On both occasions, the petitioner took back the petitions as if those were not pressed.  He, however, did not stop there.

He tried to make his case fresh and strong and added a new point in his petition. This time he also challenged the legality of the schedule of Gazipur city polls announced by the EC on March 31 along with his previous point.

Then on May 6, he filed a new writ petition with the HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Zafar Ahmed. This time, he won as the HC bench stayed the city polls for three months just 10 days before the voting.

It also ordered the EC and the government to explain why inclusion of Shimulia union's six mouzas in Gazipur City Corporation and the election schedule should not be declared illegal.  

But Suruj has now been held accused of concealing information about his previous two petitions when he placed the third before the HC on May 6.

“The respondent [Suruj] has filed the latest writ petition by suppressing the other two writs filed by him on the same ground and thereby he committed fraud upon the honourable court,” said BNP mayoral candidate Hasan Uddin Sarker in his petition challenging the HC order.

Aggrieved by the stay order, Awami League mayoral candidate Jahangir Alam also filed an appeal yesterday with the SC challenging the three-month stay on the polls.

Jahangir in his petition said the HC had earlier disposed of a similar writ petition challenging the legality of inclusion of six mouzas under Shimulia union in Gazipur City Corporation. Therefore, the writ petition seeking stay on the election cannot be acceptable, said his lawyer Ashraful Islam Sajib.

In another development, the EC yesterday decided to file an appeal challenging the three-month stay on the city polls.

"The lawyer of EC has been asked to take necessary steps to this end," EC Secretary Helaluddin Ahmed told journalists. He said there was no complexity over the demarcation of the boundary of Gazipur City Corporation.

In June 2013, the mayoral election of the city was held on the basis of the existing boundary and there was no legal complexity.

Suruj, whose move derailed the Gazipur polls, however, has his own defence. He said he filed the writ petitions to seek justice.

Asked why he concealed information about his previous petitions in the May 6 petition, Suruj got angry and reacted: “It is none of your business.”

His lawyers engaged with the third petition claimed that they were not aware of the previous writ petitions. 

Contacted yesterday, Syed Rezaur Rahman and BM Ilyas Kachi, who filed the May 6 petition and appeared before the court respectively as his lawyers, said they were not informed about the previous writ petitions filed by their client. 

Ilyas said he only placed arguments before the court and he knew nothing about previous petitions. He said the lawyer who filed the petition may know the details of the previous two writ petitions.

Rezaur said he filed this petition and he cannot say exactly what happened to the previous two petitions as he did not deal with those.

When his attention was drawn to the lawyers' comments, Suruj said, “I frequently changed my lawyers. So it is natural that they could not tell about all the minor details of my case.”