The High Court (HC) has scrapped a jail sentence awarded by a mobile court and ordered the authorities concerned to immediately release two children who were convicted by the mobile court in Atpara upazila in Netrakona.
Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Netrokona has been asked to take steps in this regard.
The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim passed the order after a Supreme Court lawyer sent a letter to the judge on Wednesday (August 4).
Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir sent the letter, seeking release of the two children who were sentenced to one-month imprisonment by the mobile court under the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2017. He sent the letter following a newspaper report in this regard.
The lawyer forwarded the letter to the HC bench through email, saying that an executive magistrate can’t hold trial of the children through a mobile court as per a judgement delivered by the High Court in 2019. Awarding such imprisonment is a rare precedent.
Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir said that he sent the letter to the HC as an officer of the court under the relevant provisions of the High Court rules. “I think that the issue is very sensitive. Mobile courts have no jurisdiction to give imprisonment to any child,” he added.
In the letter, he requested the High Court to consider the letter as an application as per the related article of country’s Constitution and the related provision of the Supreme Court Rules. “I have sent this letter through email to Justice M Enayetur Rahim. As far as I know I have written a letter directly to a judge for the first time,” said the lawyer.
Regarding the rationale of the letter, Advocate Shishir Manir said, “The newspaper report in the Fatwa case was accepted as an application. During my studentship, I read that a telephone call was considered as an FIR. A mother named Nilabati Behara of the neighbouring country sent a letter to the Chief Justice of India. She had also received compensation on the basis of that letter. Many suo-moto were issued on the basis of newspaper reports. Letters sent from prison are also considered as appeals. Seeing these examples, I wrote this letter with enthusiasm and hope.”
Earlier on Sunday (August 1), Sultana Razia, assistant commissioner (land) of Atpara upazila in Netrakona, conducted a mobile court and sentenced two 15-year-olds to one month’s imprisonment for getting married.
The mobile court had also ordered the police to send the detainees to the Child Development Centre in Gazipur. The news was published in a Bengali national daily on Wednesday (August 4).
After publication of the news item, Advocate Shishir Manir sent the letter to the High Court. Immediately after receiving the letter, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim held the hearing on the issue.
On March 11 in 2019, an HC bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Md Mahmud Hasan Talukder scrapped the jail sentences handed down by executive magistrate-run-mobile courts to juveniles across the country.
In the full text of the judgement, the HC bench observed that the mobile court law has not empowered executive magistrates to conduct trial of children.