Meeting with CJ cancelled as Law Minister falls sick

Staff Correspondent: The meeting, supposed to be held with Chief Justice (CJ) Surendra Kumar Sinha over the gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges, is not being held today as Law Minister Anisul Huq fell sick.

"I am very sick. I informed Supreme Court registrar general about my sickness. I cannot attend the meeting scheduled for today," Anisul told journalists on Thursday noon.

Earlier on July 27, the law minister submitted a draft copy of the gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges to Chief Justice (CJ) Surendra Kumar Sinha.

Rejecting the draft of the gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges on July 30, the chief justice told the court that a meeting can be held over the issue at any time ranging from 2:00pm on Tuesday to 12:00am on Thursday.

The chief justice convened the meeting asking all the Appellate Division bench judges to be present.

He also asked the law minister, attorney general and any expert in this regard to attend the meeting in favour of the government.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on July 23 extended one week timeframe for the government to publish a gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges and fixed July 30 for the order on the issue.

Earlier, the government sought time in several phases to publish a gazette notification in this regard.

On November 7 last year, the Supreme Court ordered the government to issue a gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges by 24 November.

On December 2 in 1999, the Supreme Court in the Masdar Hossain case issued a 12-point directive, including formulating separate disciplinary rules for the lower court judges.

risingbd/Dhaka/Aug 3, 2017/Mehedi/Amirul