The BNP yesterday demanded that the two ministers penalised by the Supreme Court in a “historic verdict” resign from the cabinet.
Food Minister Quamrul Islam and Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque were fined Tk50,000 each for making contemptuous remarks on the chief justice and the judiciary. An eight-member bench of the Appellate Division passed the order yesterday rejecting their unconditional apology.
“We think that the two ministers do not have any moral right to remain in the cabinet following the verdict. They should resign on ethical ground and for the sake of democracy,” Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, acting secretary general of the BNP, told reporters at the party’s Nayapaltan office.
“This verdict will certainly play a historic role in protecting the independence of the judiciary,” he added.
Earlier in the day, outgoing president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Khandaker Mahbub Hossain also demanded resignation of the ministers.
“If they do not resign, the prime minister should sack them to set an example. A convict cannot be a member of the cabinet. There is no need of a law for this,” said Mahbub, also an adviser to the BNP chief.
He said that the ministers should have been given harsher punishment for what they had done.
