Acting chief justice: Mobile court sentences scares me as well

Acting Chief Justice Abdul Wahhab Miah on Wednesday said that he himself feels scared at times seeing the sentences handed down by mobile courts. He said: “They [mobile courts] will hand down jail terms and fines without police presence. This idea scares me as well. I can hardly imagine how the general people feel. “The Constitution does not support any citizen being jailed, even for one night, without any reason.” He made the observation on Wednesday during the hearing on the leave to appeal against a High Court verdict that termed 14 sections and sub-sections in the Mobile Court Act 2009, relating to the conducting of mobile courts by executive magistrates, as illegal and unconstitutional. On June 11 last year, the High Court had delivered the verdict and also stated that conducting mobile courts with executive magistrates was illegal. Later, the State filed a leave to appeal against the verdict.The article was first published on Bangla Tribune