Mosammat Kamrunnahar, a judge who was relieved from Dhaka’s Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 after a controversial observation, is not fit to conduct activities of criminal cases, says the Supreme Court.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the full text of a verdict said that the former judge of Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal had granted bail to an accused of a rape case with ill intention as she granted the bail despite a stay order.
The verdict was issued on November 22, while the full text of the verdict was released on Wednesday evening (November 24).
The full verdict says that Kamrunnahar’s ‘intentional oversight’ in noticing the entire records of the case indicates an ‘ill intention’. She violated the Appellate Division’s order by granting bail to Aslam Shikder and that she is ‘not fit’ to preside over any criminal cases.
Earlier, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court had seized the judicial authority of Kamrunnahar.
On November 22, the stripped judge appeared before the five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain in connection with the case in which she granted bail to the rape accused. She apologized to the Appellate Division for granting the bail.
Kamrunnahar came under fire for her observation in the November 11 verdict in the case over the 2017 rape of two students at The Raintree Dhaka Hotel in Banani in the capital.
On that day, she acquitted Shafat Ahmed, the son of an Apan Jewellers owner, and four others of charges of raping two university students at the hotel. In her observation, she said that police should not record a case 72 hours after a rape incident.
Following the observation, Kamrunnahar was withdrawn from her workplace and attached to the Law and Justice Division.
On November 14, Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain temporarily stripped her of her judicial power and ordered her not to attend court proceedings.
On November 15, Kamrunnahar appeared before the Appellate Division to give her explanation. On Monday, she appeared before the court to attend a hearing on the matter.
Aslam Shikder, a former programme manager of a private television station, was granted bail by the High Court on June 18 in 2019 in a rape case. The state appealed to the Appellate Division against the bail order. Following the application, the Chamber Court stayed the bail on June 25 of the same year and referred the matter to the regular bench of the Appellate Division for hearing.
Despite the appeal being pending in the Appellate Division, the Women and Child Abuse Suppression Tribunal-7 granted bail to the accused on March 2 last year. The state brought the matter to the court even after the stay order of the Supreme Court.
In view of this, on March 12 last year, the Appellate Division directed the judge concerned to appear before the court for an explanation.