SCBA continues construction on its office flouting court orders
Attorney general terms it gross violation
Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) continues to erect tin-shed rooms on the roof of its office building defying restrictions from Supreme Court (SC) and High Court (HC).
Former SCBA secretary SM Rezaul Karim yesterday said the SCBA leaders are not paying any heed to the restrictions and continuing with the construction.
The SC authorities on March 14 in a letter asked the SCBA president to take steps immediately in removing all unauthorised structures from the roof, which Public Works Department (PWD) claimed would make the building vulnerable.
On March 11, the SC authorities in another letter prohibited SCBA leaders from any further construction on the roof and adjacent areas of the building.
On March 12, the HC in a suomoto order directed SCBA, dominated by pro-BNP lawyers, not to allocate the rooms to lawyers and not to conduct any money transactions in this regard for the next three months.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday told The Daily Star that the pro-BNP lawyers are constructing the rooms to please a section of lawyers ahead of SCBA election on March 30 and 31.
He said he, along with other senior lawyers, would soon request the government to construct a new building at SCBA premises to solve the accommodation problem.
“I have never seen such gross violation of the orders of the Supreme Court and the High Court by the Supreme Court Bar Association leaders, who practice law,” the attorney general said.
Meanwhile, SCBA President Khandker Mahbub Hossain said they already constructed the rooms and would not remove them before the election.
The next executive committee will decide on the removal, as many of those were constructed 10 to 15 years ago, and are running business, he said.
Khandker said the structures should not be removed without arranging an alternative accommodation for lawyers. He added that they would reply to the SC's letter this week.
SCBA Secretary Bodruddoza Badal said they already spent around Tk 50 lakh for the construction and collected Tk 40,000 from each of the 117 lawyers on payment orders for allocating the rooms to them.
“We have already stopped collecting money and allotment of the rooms following the High Court order,” he said.
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