Deceiving Supreme Court judges to obtain bail for alleged offenders has gradually becoming an alarming practice among lawyers as another incident of submitting wrong information and forged documents before the apex court has been revealed recently.
The latest incident – second such chilling incident in the last two and a half months – is clear evidence of criminal rackets operating in the lower and the higher courts, making fabricated police documents and are submitted to the court to obtain bail.
This time, the High Court sent a lawyer’s clerk to jail from the court, though during the previous revelation the clerk had managed to flee and none involved in that incident has been arrested yet.
Judges of the High Court bench this time termed such forgery a “heinous offence.”
Last Monday, following a bail petition filed by lawyer Nur Mohammad Talukder, a High Court bench comprising of Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam granted bail to Mohammad Jahangir Alam, an imprisoned accused of a criminal case.
Defence lawyer Nur mentioned in the bail petition that his client had been arrested by the Railway Police in Dhaka on September 10 for having 20 bottles of phensidyl in his possession.
The lawyer also annexed attested duplicate copies of the First Information Report (FIR), seizure list, Railway Police’s forwarding letter submitted to the Dhaka’s Senior Judicial Magistrate’s Court and the Dhaka’s District and Session Judge’s Court’s bail rejection order. These documents show that those were officially collected from the General Recording Office of the Dhaka’s Magistrate Court.
All “true copy” of the police and court documents were made by a copier of the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court, Dhaka; checked by an official of the same Dhaka court while finally attested by the administrative officer of Dhaka District Judge’s Court.
But all the documents were fake and fabricated.
According to the similar original documents, accused Jahangir was arrested for having 12 gold bars in his possession, recovered by the Railway police.
The High Court bench granted Jahangir six months’ bail.
But the following day, December 2, someone had called the Assistant Attorney General Md Ali Jinnah in his mobile phone and informed him about the arrest of Jahangir with gold bars, not phensidyl.
Knowing this, Jinnah on Wednesday morning told his senior colleagues – Deputy Attorney General KM Zahid Sarwar who contested Jahangir’s bail petition as the state counsel and the top boss, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam.
They sent a fax message to the jail authorities immediately to stop the release of Jahangir from the prison, Jinnah told the Dhaka Tribune.
Jinnah and Sarwar collected copies of the genuine documents including the FIR and rushed to the bench that had granted the bail.
The judges then also asked AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, to join the hearing on the issue. Jahangir’s counsel Nur also met the judges along with Md Yusuf Bhuiyan, a clerk of another lawyer.
The defence lawyer explained to the judges that the clerk had prepared all the documents and that he just signed those and moved the bail petition.
After the hearing, the judges fixed the matter for passing the order after lunch and asked the court keepers to hand over the clerk to the police and take legal action against him.
After the lunch recess, Justice Nuruzzaman and Justice Mustafa cancelled Jahangir’s bail. The court also asked the authorities concerned not to release the accused from jail custody.
The bench further asked Jahangir’s counsel to give an explanation in written regarding the forgery and to explain in three days why action should not be taken against him as per law.
The judges also directed the Supreme Court Bar Association authorities to take proper legal action against the clerk. It directed the registrar of the Supreme Court to file a case against the clerk and form an inquiry committee to look into the matter and submit report by December 14.
The judges termed the practice of making false and fabricated documents to submit before the court for obtaining bail a “heinous offence.”
“It as a very dangerous incident,” defence lawyer Nur told the Dhaka Tribune over the phone on Friday. “I will apologise to the court as I moved this case without knowing the truth.”
He claimed that all the fake and fabricated documents had been prepared at the District Judge’s Court. “It is understandable from this incident that a vicious circle is involved in such practice,” he added.
“It was beyond my knowledge that the real fact was concealed in the bail petition. So when I came to know about it, I called the clerk who prepared the case. I took him to the judges without letting him know about the allegation.”
There was a similar incident occurred in the same bench several weeks ago. But at that time, the clerk who had been involved in the forgery, fled evading arrest, Nur said.
The way they forge the papers, “it was not possible imagine if they were false or fabricated information.” In each document it was mentioned that police recovered 20 bottles of phensidyl from the accused, the lawyer said.
“It is not possible for any lawyer to understand this [forgery],” said Nur, who has been practising for the last 10 years. The first five years he had practised at the Laxmipur district court.
Clerk Yusuf, who has been arrested for his offence, is also from Laxmipur. They know each other.
Nur said Yusuf works for lawyer Md Ramzan Ali, who practices at the Dhaka’s District Judge’s Court but also has a chamber at the Supreme Court Bar building.
Lawyers who deal with many cases usually appoint clerks on payment. But these court clerks across the country are controlled by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). They have an association and get identity cards having identification numbers from the SCBA.
Nur said the culprits involved with such crimes must be punished.
Court pardoned lawyer in previous incident
On September 18, the same High Court bench granted bail to five accused yaba traders on a petition submitted with false information.
Abdus Samad, lawyer for the accused, mentioned in the petition that police had recovered only 243 tablets from their possessions. But police in their case document said they had recovered 19,000 pieces.
Being informed about the forgery, the bench later cancelled the bails. As the accused were already released, the police arrested them again.
Assistant Attorney General Jinnah, who was also involved in revealing that forgery, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The High Court bench pardoned lawyer Abdus Samad after he sought unconditional apology before the court.”
Samad also claimed that he had no idea about the documents and accused the clerk of being involved in the forgery.
The Supreme Court registrar filed a forgery case against clerk Boni Amin and Shahadat Hossain Jony, who had certified the documents as authentic, Jinnah said adding that none of them were arrested yet.
SM Kuddus Zaman, acting registrar of the Supreme Court, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that he had formed a probe committee and that the probe report was submitted.
Strict measures needed
When contacted, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, the highest law officer of the country, said: “My apprehension is many such manufactured bail petitions were dissolved earlier. So now there is no scope of considering [relying on] any petition simply.”
He told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that such incidents had recently increased alarmingly. Earlier there were hardly one or two such incidents.
Mahbubey said law officers could assist the court in revealing such forgery if the courts take some time to dispose of cases. “A lawyer going to the court hurriedly with a bail prayer and obtains bail...this has to be changed.”
He suggested that after submission of bail petitions, the court can give the law officers a chance to check the facts and the documents of the petitions in one or two days with the police station concerned or courts or any other authorities.
“If the High Court benches accept the idea, the police stations and the general recording office will have to respond immediately to help the law officers,” he added.
Through such forgery, many notorious criminals might be freed on bail “which will be a dangerous threat for the society.”
Expressing disappointment, Mahbubey said: “I can see a degradation in our profession. Nowadays, criminal cases do not come to the lawyers, they come to the touts and clerks, who choose lawyers to deal with the cases.
“They [touts and clerks] do not come to senior lawyers who may ask for original certified copies of all documents. So they opt for little-known lawyers to make the dealings simple.”
ABM Khairul Haque, former chief justice said he had found a petition prepared through forgery while serving as a judge of the High Court. It was not a bail petition, but one that sought rule on a particular matter.
After learning about the forgery, Justice Khairul, now chairman of the Law Commission, said he had directed the officials concerned to file a criminal case against the persons involved with the forgery.
“Presently, the general impression or perception says practice of such forgery has increased,” he told the Dhaka Tribune adding that failure of taking strict measures could be the reason behind such rise.
“Recurrence of such incidents will drop if we can ensure accountability,” Justice Khairul added.
