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Bangla SC declares illegal amendment allowing religion in pol
Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Tuesday declared as illegal a Constitutional amendment that had allowed religion-based political parities to flourish in the country, paving the way for the government to ban such groups.
Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Tuesday declared as illegal a Constitutional amendment that had allowed religion-based political parities to flourish in the country, paving the way for the government to ban such groups.
The Supreme Court's order came on two writ petitions challenging an earlier High Court verdict that had declared the 1979 Fifth Amendment to the Constitution as illegal.
A six-member bench of the apex court's Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Md Tafazzul Islam upheld the High Court verdict after six days of hearing on the two leave-to-appeal petitions filed by opposition BNP Secretary General Khondker Delwar Hossain and three lawyers from its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami.
The amendment declared illegal had also legitimised the governments that came to power following the coup of August 15, 1975 in which Bangladesh's founder president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members was killed.
The then deputy army chief general Ziaur Rahman had subsequently emerged as the strongman of Bangladesh and ascended to presidency, floating the BNP as a political party. His regime had also scrapped an earlier Constitutional ban on religion-based politics through the Fifth Amendment.
