The Appellate Division has set 17 November as the hearing date for review petitions filed by three organisations seeking the restoration of the caretaker government system.
On Thursday morning (24 October), the Appellate Division, led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, scheduled the hearing.
Both the state counsel and the legal team of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) requested additional time, resulting in the deferment of the hearing.
On 16 October, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir filed a review petition challenging the 13th Amendment annulment verdict. Prior to this, in August, Dr Badiul Alam Majumder, Secretary of the organisation Shujan, had filed a separate review petition. On Wednesday (23 October), Jamaat-e-Islami also submitted its review petition.
In a landmark ruling on 10 May 2011, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court declared the 13th Amendment, which introduced the caretaker government system, unconstitutional and nullified it.
However, the court, led by then Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque, permitted the 10th and 11th general elections to be conducted under the caretaker government. The court ruled that the chief advisor to the caretaker government could be selected by parliamentary consensus.
The court also stated that the majority opinion of the Appellate Division led to the acceptance of the petition, rendering the 1996 Constitution (13th Amendment) Act invalid and unconstitutional. Although the amendment was deemed unlawful, the 10th and 11th parliamentary elections could still take place under the caretaker government in exceptional circumstances, following ancient principles that prioritise public and national security as the supreme law.
During this period, Parliament retained the full authority to abolish the provision for appointing the chief advisor of the caretaker government from among former chief justices or Appellate Division judges.
Furthermore, the 2005 appeal regarding the amendment was also dismissed.
The 13th Amendment, which introduced the caretaker government system into the Constitution, was passed in Parliament in 1996.
Three lawyers, including Advocate M Salim Ullah, later challenged its legality by filing a writ petition in the High Court.
