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The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Monday summoned Md Abdullah Al Masud Chowdhury, Secretary of the Home Ministry’s Security Services Division, and Brigadier General A S M Anisul Haque, Inspector General of Prisons, to place their explanations for not complying with an apex court verdict to give promotion to six officials of the prisons.
The officials have been asked to appear before the court on December 4 this year to clarify their stance on the issue.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan passed the order after hearing five separate contempt of court petitions filed against them. The apex court also fixed December 4 for passing further order on the petitions.
According to the case documents, following a review petition, the apex court delivered its verdict on April 7 in 2022 in which the apex court asked the authorities concerned to give promotion to six of its officials. The verdict asked the respondents to immediately consider the promotion of the six officials in line with the ‘Officers and Staff (Department of Prisons) Recruitment Rules, 1984’.
Since the direction of the verdict was not implemented, five promotion aspirants including Md Nurunnabi Bhuiyan filed five separate contempt of court petitions with the Appellate Division on September 27 last year.
Lawyer Mohammad Ibrahim Khalil appeared in the court hearing on behalf of the contempt petitioners, while lawyer Shafiqul Islam represented the prison authorities.
Later, Mr Ibrahim Khalil said, “Among the six officials five are now performing in the current charges of ‘Jail Superintendent’. As per recruitment policy, all the six officials applied to the concerned ministry in 2016 to get promotion, but failed. Then they moved the Administrative Tribunal and secured a result in their favour.
The decision of the Administrative Tribunal was annulled when the government went to the Appellate Tribunal against it. Against the Appellate Tribunal, the officials moved the Appellate Division, which dismissed the appeals on April 15, 2019. Then six officers filed six review petitions in 2019 seeking reconsideration of the judgment.”
Following the review petitions, the Appellate Divisions delivered its verdict on April 7 in 2022 and asked the prison authorities to give promotions to the officials with retrospective effect.
On November 6 in 2023, the jail authorities sought two weeks time from the apex court to execute the promotion of the officials.
However, referring to the decision of the prison authorities, their lawyer on Monday told the court that there is no opportunity to consider the retrospective promotion of the six officials at this stage according to the Recruitment Rules, 1984.