Justice Manik given 72 hours to withdraw razakar remarks

A Supreme Court lawyer has issued legal notice to retired judge Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik for terming the chief justice a razakar during a TV talk show last week. Lawyer Ekhlas Uddin Bhuiyan sent the notice to the retired judge by post Thursday demanding withdrawal of his remarks in 72 hours or to face legal action. In the notice, he said that Justice Manik had branded the chief justice, Surendra Kumar Sinha, a self-confessed razakar and anti-liberation element during a talk show on DBC channel on March 15. “If the chief justice is a razakar according to your [Justice Manik] statement, then it will be a betrayal with 3 million martyrs in this month of independence,” the notice read. This is not the first time Justice Manik made the comment about the chief justice’s role during the 1971 Liberation War. He made the same statement in media last year too. Justice Sinha’s statement given during a court proceeding in 2014 had an explanation about his war-time activities which Justice Manik has always refrained from mentioning while talking to the media. The chief justice had said that he had to stay with the Pakistani Army as a Peace Committee member to save his life, but he used to meet the freedom fighters in the night and gave them information about the plans of the occupation forces and their collaborators in Moulvibazar. The conflict between them surfaced in September 2015 when the Supreme Court registrar office in a letter asked him to send back all documents of the cases in which he would not be able to pronounce verdicts before his retirement on October 1, 2015. The letter also said that Justice Manik might go abroad without writing the verdicts since he held a British passport. Orders and verdicts of 161 cases had been pending with him during his retirement. He was later removed from the Appellate Division bench headed by the chief justice, following which he wrote to President Abdul Hamid to impeach Justice SK Sinha. At that time, a leaked phone conversation between the chief justice and another judge suggested that there were differences of opinion between them with regard to the appeal case verdict in the war crimes case against BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. Chief Justice SK Sinha has not responded to Justice Manik’s blistering remarks, but the BNP and BNP-dominated Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) had termed him wrongheaded. The SCBA also refused to bid him farewell and instead demanded an inquiry into his corrupt and controversial activities. Justice Manik finally submitted full verdicts in the cases, days after the chief justice said that writing judgments after retirement was unconstitutional. Law Minister Anisul Huq, however, told parliament that writing verdicts after retirement was not illegal and unconstitutional.

What the chief justice said

During the hearing in war criminal Kamaruzzman’s appeals case on September 10, 2014, the defence argued how a freedom fighter could take shelter at the house of a Peace Committee member. Justice Sinha, who was heading a four-member bench, replied: “It may happen. There was a situation during the war when in every family if one was an Awami League supporter, another was pro-Pakistani. I myself was a member of the Peace Committee.” After saying this, he looked at Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah sitting next to him with a smile. “To save life,” Justice Wahhab laughed. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam then said: “I personally know a Hindu family in Mymensingh that converted to Islam during the Liberation War.” Justice Sinha then clarified: “I used to accompany the Pakistani Army personnel during the day time, but at night I passed down information to the freedom fighters.” Justice Hasan Foez Siddique said: “By enlisting as razakars, many people gave their arms to the freedom fighters.” Justice Wahhab mentioned: “Justice Krishna Debnath’s father too, became a Muslim. It appeared in the newspaper.” It was apparently the first time a judge sitting in a court has revealed his role and affiliation with the anti-liberation force.