The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has ordered the reinstatement of 85 upazila election officers who were dismissed during the caretaker government almost one and a half decades ago.
On Tuesday, a five-member Appellate Bench, led by Chief Justice Dr Syed Refaat Ahmed, delivered this verdict.
Senior lawyers Prabir Niyogi, Barrister Salauddin Dolon, and Barrister Ruhul Quddus Kajal represented the petitioners in court, while Additional Attorney General Barrister Anik R Haque argued on behalf of the state.
Earlier, on September 3, 2005, a total of 327 individuals were temporarily appointed as upazila election officers through the Public Service Commission (PSC). After controversy arose over these appointments during the tenure of the four-party alliance government, an evaluation exam was conducted for all 327 appointees during the caretaker government in 2007.
Among them, 85 individuals who failed the evaluation were dismissed from service on September 3 of that year. The dismissed officers filed a case against this decision, but the Administrative Tribunal dismissed their claim on March 23, 2009. They subsequently appealed, and on April 12, 2010, the Administrative Appellate Tribunal granted their appeal and ruled in favor of reinstating them.
The state then filed four separate leave-to-appeal petitions (applications seeking permission to appeal) against this verdict. As a result, on April 29, 2010, the Chamber Court of the Appellate Division suspended the verdict of the Administrative Appellate Tribunal and forwarded the matter for a full hearing before the regular bench of the Appellate Division.
Following this, in 2011, the government filed separate appeals. Later, on August 28, 2022, hearings on the state's appeals against the Administrative Appellate Tribunal's verdict concluded. After these hearings, on September 1 of the same year, a six-member Appellate Bench, led by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, delivered a verdict. The ruling overturned the previous decision of the Administrative Appellate Tribunal from over a decade ago, meaning that the 85 dismissed election officers would no longer be reinstated.