Chief Justice SK Sinha has sent his resignation letter to the president from abroad, a day after his month-long leave ended, the president’s Press Secretary Joynal Abedin has confirmed.

President Abdul Hamid has received the resignation letter, Abedin told the Bangla Tribune on Saturday.

Sinha, the first non-Muslim chief justice in Muslim majority Bangladesh, took office on January 17, 2015. His tenure was to end on January 21 next year.

He left for Australia on October 13 amid a row with the government after the top court scrapped the 16th constitutional amendment, stripping the Parliament of its power to impeach apex court judges.

He had drawn criticism for his observations made in the verdict.

Before leaving Dhaka, Sinha told reporters that he was “quite embarrassed” about how a specific political quarter, including some ministers and the prime minister herself, had criticised him over one of his rulings –the 16th Amendment verdict.

A day later, five judges of the Appellate Division announced their unwillingness to continue working with him because of “11 gross allegations including money laundering, financial scam, corruptions and moral degradation against him.”