The High Court on Wednesday asked six Supreme Court lawyers and the secretary of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (SHUJAN) to place their opinions as amici curie during the hearing on constitutionality of declaring an uncontested candidate winner in general election.
Senior lawyers Dr Kamal Hossain, M Amir-Ul Islam, Rafique-Ul Huq, Mahmudul Islam, Moudud Ahmed and Rokanuddin Mahmud and SHUJAN Secretary Badiul Alam Majumder will attend the hearing when the case is put on the cause list from March 14 to 31, Deputy Attorney General Al-Amin Sarker told the Dhaka Tribune.
The bench of Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Khurshid Alam Sarkar gave the order.
On February 16, the bench had issued a ruling seeking explanations as to why the provision of the Representation of the People Order (RPO) for declaring an uncontested candidate winner in parliamentary poll should not be declared unconstitutional.
It passed the order in response to a writ plea filed on December 17 by Jatiya Party Vice-Chairman Khandker Abdus Salam.
The cabinet secretary, the law secretary, the chief election commissioner and the Election Commission secretary were asked to reply to the ruling in 10 days. However, they had not replied yet, lawyer for the petitioner Hassan MS Azim told the Dhaka Tribune.
Supreme Court lawyer Didar-Us Salam assisted Azim at Wednesday's hearing.
The petition said: “The [RPO] provision is also contrary to the constitution as it inherently possesses the scope of arbitrary and discriminatory use of the election process by the political parties and, thereby, gets their choice of candidates declared by the Election Commission to have been elected avoiding participation of the people.”
A total of 153 lawmakers were elected unopposed in the 10th parliamentary election held on January 5.