The High Court (HC) on Monday cleared the way for holding elections of the split Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) withdrawing its earlier stay order that had suspended all actions initiated by the Election Commission for holding the DCC elections. After concluding the final hearing on the writ petition, the HC bench comprising Justice Naima Haider and Justice Zafar Ahmed rejected the petition.
The HC came up with the order rejecting a writ petition that was filed challenging the legality of the EC decision to hold DCC polls without updating the voter list of the DCC (North and South) according to the electoral rules before holding the elections.
“There is no legal bar in holding the DCC election following the HC order,” Advocate Shahdin Malik, counsel for EC told reporters after the HC order.
Upon a writ petition another bench of the HC on April 16 last year, stayed for three months the operation of all actions initiated by the Election Commission for holding elections to the divided Dhaka City Corporation slated for May 24 last year.
Later, it extended its stay order for several times.
It also asked the Election Commission to update the DCC electoral roll by that time.
The HC also issued a rule upon the respondents, including the commission, to explain in two weeks why it should not be directed to hold DCC elections after implementation of the prescribed election-related rules of Local Government (City Corporation) Act-2009, including delimitation of the DCC wards.
The government and EC today replied to a HC rule that asked them to explain why they should not be directed to delimit the areas of DCC wards as per the relevant rules.
In reply they said, they have updated the DCC (North and South) voter list and also delimited the areas of DCC wards according to the Local Government (City Corporation) Act-2009, Murshid said.
Advocate Manzill Murshid, who had filed the writ petition on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), told reporters that there is no legal bar for holding the polls as both the government and Election Commission (EC) have completed their legal procedure.
Now, it is the duty of the election commission to take decision about holding the DCC polls, he added.
Soon after the HC order, Election Commissioner Md Shah Nawaz told reporters that they would take initiatives for holding the DCC election after getting the copy of the HC verdict.
-With The Independent input
