The High Court has scheduled Wednesday (21 May) to deliver its order on a petition seeking a stay on the gazette notification issued by the Election Commission declaring BNP leader Ishraque Hossain as the Mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC).
The bench of Justice Md Akram Hossain Chowdhury and Justice Debashish Roy Chowdhury fixed the date following hearings held throughout the day on Tuesday (20 May).
The hearing began at 1 pm and continued until 2 pm. It resumed again at 4:10 pm and concluded around 5:15 pm.
Senior lawyer Mohammad Hossain represented the petitioner in court. Ishraque Hossain was represented by lawyers AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon and Barrister Kaiser Kamal. Deputy Attorney Generals Mahfuzur Rahman Milon and Khan Ziaur Rahman appeared for the state.
Advocate Mohammad Hossain highlighted several "errors" in the judgment of the Election Tribunal and requested the court to issue a rule. In contrast, AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon and Barrister Kaiser Kamal argued that any party aggrieved by the tribunal's ruling must appeal to the Election Appellate Tribunal—specifically, the respondent in the case, such as Fazle Noor Taposh. They claimed that a lawyer cannot file a writ with the High Court in such a case, rendering the current petition inadmissible.
It is worth noting that the DSCC election was held on 1 February 2020. In that election, Awami League’s candidate Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh received over 400,000 votes, defeating BNP's Ishraque Hossain, who secured 236,000 votes. Taposh was declared the winner in the gazette notification published on 2 February and assumed office shortly after. Alleging irregularities and corruption in the polls, Ishraq filed a legal challenge on 3 March 2020, seeking cancellation of the results.
Following the fall of the Awami League government during a student-led public uprising in August last year, all city mayors across the country were removed from office. Since then, Additional Secretary Shahjahan Mia has been serving as the administrator of Dhaka South City Corporation.
On 27 March, the Election Tribunal, led by Dhaka's First Joint District Judge Md Nurul Islam, nullified the election results that had declared Fazle Noor Taposh as mayor and instead announced BNP's Ishraque Hossain as the rightful winner of the 2020 election. The court instructed the Election Commission to publish a gazette notification within 10 days.
The EC complied and issued the gazette on 27 April.
However, on the same day the gazette was issued, two individuals named Rafiqul Islam and Mamunur Rashid served a legal notice challenging the verdict and decree, urging the authorities to refrain from administering the oath to Ishraque and from implementing the gazette.
