The government does not have any plans to send BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to jail before the elections, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Anisul Huq has said.
“However, our prime minister has already warned if BNP does excesses, then…” he said while talking to reporters at a program in Dhaka's Dhanmondi area on Saturday.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said if BNP does excesses, its chairperson Khaleda Zia will be sent back to jail.
“We've given her (Khaleda) scope to stay in her house, suspending her sentence on humanitarian grounds. If BNP does excesses, we will send her back to jail,” she said.
Later, in response to the question of whether an appeal will be made in the High Court to extend the jail sentence of Tarique Rahman in connection with the August 21 grenade attack, the minister said: "Wait and see what happens."
The minister later said that the government has brought back many things from the Constitution of 1972 through the 15th Amendment and is now working to get back the original constitution, reports BSS.
"Through the 15th Amendment, we got back much of the original Constitution of 1972. We tried to get more things back through the 16th Amendment, which is now a sub judice matter. We are thinking about it since we want to get back the original Constitution of 1972," he said/
The law minister added: "The party (Awami League) and the government will decide when and how it will be done in terms of which reality".
Responding to another question regarding the non-implementation of Article 96 (2) of the Constitution or the 16th Amendment, the law minister said a review petition is pending in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in this regard.
Hopefully, the hearing of this review petition will be completed within a few days, the law minister said, adding: "We will act according to the Supreme Court's verdict in this regard".
Speaking about the relevancy of keeping Article 70 of the Constitution intact, he said a partisan lawmaker takes part in elections to implement a manifesto of a specific political party.
Therefore, if the ruling party moves any bill in parliament to implement its manifesto and treasury bench lawmaker casts vote against the bill, it ultimately goes against the mandate, which he or she made during the election campaign, Anisul said.
But an independent candidate can cast vote as per his or her wish, he added.
