High Court has said that by punishing a person by blatantly disregarding the court order, Kisoreganj judicial magistrate, Md Iqbal Mahdmud, has committed an ‘unpardonable error.’
HC has also dismissed Iqbal Mahmud’s written application seeking apology. A joint bench of justices, Tariq ul Hakim and Md. Shohrowardi has also ordered for a written account of the incident to be submitted.
Hearing for the magistrate was by barrister Mahbub Uddin Khokon while the writ was represented by advocate Fazlur Rahman.
Meanwhile, the state was represented by deputy attorney general, Amatul Karim.
Lawyer on behalf of the accused magistrate said: “this was done inadvertently; there was no malicious intent involved. We ask for unconditional apology.”
At this point, the High Court questioned the jurisdiction of the magistrate in handing out the punishment.
Asking for a written account, the next hearing was fixed for Aug 8 2018. The HC also ordered the judicial magistrate in question, Iqbal Mahmud, to be present.
According to case report: In Kisoreganj, a person called Aftabuddin lodged a fraud case against another person, Habibur Rahman, who allegedly gave the former a Tk. 10 lakh cheque which was dishonoured.
Aftabuddin said that Habibur took Tk 15 lakh from him as loan.
It was later found that Aftab had lodged a similar case against the same person earlier in 2016, which the court stayed. There is no provision to have two cases on one charge.
In spite of the breach of legal procedure, a charge sheet was formulated against Habibur, the report stated.