Justice Md Muzammel Hossain was on Wednesday appointed the 20th chief
justice of Bangladesh superseding senior-most Appellate Division judge Shah
Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman once again.
The president, Zillur Rahman, made the appoint- ment with effect from May
18, said an official gazette notification issued on Wednesday.
Justice Muzammel Hossain will replace the incumbent chief justice ABM
Khairul Haque, who will retire on May 17.
With the appointment of Justice Muzammel, Justice Nayeem was superseded for
the second time.
Justice Khairul Haque was appointed chief justice on September 26, 2010
superseding two senior judges of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court
— Justice Md Abdul Matin and Justice Nayeem.
The Supreme Court Bar Association has earlier demanded appointment of the
senior-most Appellate Division judge as chief justice.
The bar association president, Khondker Mahbub Hossain, on Wednesday told
New Age that the association would hold its special general meeting today to
decide its action in protest at the supersession.
'We will protest at the supersession in the appointment of the chief justice
as such supersession is always done on political considerations and it
tarnishes the image of the judiciary,' he said.
Justice Nayeem is unlikely to be the chief justice as he will retire on
November 15, 2011 and Justice Muzammel will retire on January 17, 2015.
If the constitutional provisions relating to caretaker government are not
amended by the parliament, the outgoing chief justice Khairul Haque will
remain eligible to head the caretaker government during the next general
elections to be held by April 2014.
Justice Nayeem went on leave on September 30, 2010 when Justice Khairul
Haque was appointed chief justice superseding him.
Although he joined the Supreme Court on January 30 after the leave, he told
the chief justice, as he mentioned in a letter, that he was unable to
discharge his judicial duties sitting in the bench led by Justice Khairul,
who was junior to him.
Five killed in city
Five people were killed at Kalabagan, Kadamtali, Khilgaon, Tejgaon and New Market in the capital between Monday and Wednesday.
The police found Golam Rahman, 58, dead in his house in Lake Circus at Kalabagan on Tuesday night.
Golam, a former additional chief engineer of the Roads and Highways Department, lived in the house with his wife, former lawmaker Sahana Rani, and two daughters.
The police and the family said that he had been stabbed to death in his house sometime between Monday night and Tuesday evening. His legs and hands were tied up with ropes.
The victim's brother-in-law Shahin Iqbal Sabu said that Sahana Rani and her daughters had gone to their village home in Jhenaidah on Monday morning, leaving Golam with their domestic help Nurul Islam at home.
'I went to their house about 9:00pm Tuesday and found the door open. I went inside and found him lying dead on the floor with several stab wounds in the body. I then called the police,' he said.
Shahin Iqbal said that he went there after his sister asked him over telephone to inquire about Golam as she had failed to contact him since Monday afternoon.
He said that the domestic help disappeared after Golam had been found dead.
The Kalabagan police officer-in-charge, Mohammad Enamul Haque, said that they were trying to arrest Nurul Islam, sued in this connection by Golam's wife. 'Nurul Islam is the only suspect,' he said.
The body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for a post-mortem examination.
At Kadamtali, assailants stabbed Russell alias Ujjwal, 20, of Purba Dholairpar to death on Wednesday morning.
The family and the police said that a local gang called Ujjwal out of his house and stabbed him indiscriminately in the chest, face and abdomen about 8:30am.
He died after he had been sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Ujjwal worked in a fan factory in Old Town of Dhaka and was from Chandpur.
The body was sent for a post-mortem examination.
No case was filed.
At New Market, assailants hacked Khairul Islam Babu, 36, was an employee of a real estate company, to death in a house on Wednesday morning.
New Market police subinspector Nur Alam said that they had found Khairul dead on the 13th floor of a building about 2:00pm.
A case was filed.
The body was sent for a post-mortem examination.
At Khilgaon, two cousins, Babu and Piplu, allegedly strangled a young man, Ahmed Ali, 14, at Uttarpara of Madartek about 9:30pm over a land dispute, the police said.
Ahmed was sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was pronounced dead about 10:30pm.
At Tejgaon, the Far East Insurance Company's office assistant Nasir Howlader, 30, died in Samorita Hospital in Dhaka after he had fallen down from the roof of a building at Karwan Bazar.
The victim's wife Nazma Khatun Ruma alleged that he had been pushed down from the roof.
News Source: New Age
SC leaves changes for JS to decide by 2012
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered retention of some provisions, including the Supreme Court's authority over the subordinate judiciary and Bangladeshi citizenship, made by the fifth amendment to the constitution, until December 31, 2012 to enable the parliament to make necessary amendments to the constitution.
The five-member Appellate Division bench, presided over by Justice Md Muzammel Hossain, ordered retention of the martial law proclamation that had amended Article 6 of the constitution regarding Bangladeshi citizenship.
It ordered retention of the martial law proclamations that had amended Article 44 guarantying the right to move the High Court for the enforcement of the fundamental rights and Article 102 that had restored authority to the High Court to pass necessary orders to enforce fundamental rights.
The martial law proclamations that had amended Article 96 making provisions for the Supreme Judicial Council for removal of judges and holders of constitutional offices and repealed Part VI-A of the constitution, which was added by the fourth amendment making provisions for forming 'National Party' as the lone political party in the country, will also be retained, the court ordered.
The amendments made by the fifth amendment 'are hereby provisionally condoned until December 31, 2012 in order to avoid disastrous consequence to the body politic for enabling the parliament to make necessary amendments to the constitution and also for enacting laws promulgated during the aforesaid period,' the court said.
The court passed the order in its verdict in the government's appeal seeking a review of the Appellate Division judgement delivered on February 2, 2010 upholding the High Court verdict delivered on August 29, 2005 declaring the fifth amendment void.
In Wednesday's verdict, the Appellate Division disposed of the government's petition with a modification of the operating portion of its December 2, 2010 judgement.
The court also ordered the government to hand over possession of the Moon Cinema Hall at Wiseghat in Old Town of Dhaka to the Bangladesh Italian Marble Works Limited managing director Maqsudul Alam 'in three months free from all encumbrances and/or to resolve the dispute amicably within the said period.'
The High Court had delivered the verdict after hearing a writ petition filed by Maqsudul over a dispute relating to the Moon Cinema Hall.
In Wednesday's verdict, the Appellate Division expunged the observations made by the then chief justice Tafazzul Islam in the February 2, 2010 judgement and upheld the High Court verdict delivered by Justice ABM Khairul Haque, now the chief justice.
The February 2, 2010 judgement overturned the High Court's observation that had said, 'The Fourth Schedule as envisaged under Article 150 is meant for transitional and temporary provisions. Since Paragraph 3A and 18 were neither transitional nor temporary, the insertion of those paragraphs in the Fourth Schedule is beyond the ambit of Article 150 of the constitution.'
The February 2, 2010 judgement observed, 'We are of the view that the High Court Division unnecessarily dealt with Article 150 of the constitution. As it appears, Paragraph 21 and 22 as included in the Fourth Schedule are the results of the Eleventh and Twelfth Amendment which were enacted in order to strike down remaining portion of the provisions of the Fourth and the Fifth Amendment.'
'The Fifth Amendment which ratified and validated Paragraph 3A and 18 is ultra vires because it ratified and validated the martial law proclamations, regulations and orders made by the authorities not recognised by the constitution and Article 142 thereof,' said the February 2, 2010 judgement.
The High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Huq and Justice ATM Fazley Kabir on August 29, 2005 delivered the verdict declaring illegal and void the fifth amendment and the martial law regulations issued between August 15, 1975 and April 1979.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party's secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain and three Supreme Court lawyers — Munshi Ahsan Kabir, Tajul Islam and Kamruzzaman Bhuiyan — filed two provisional petitions on May 3, 2009 as the present government accepted the High Court verdict and quit the legal battle against it.
The Appellate Division on May 4, 2009 allowed Delwar and the three lawyers to file regular petitions seeking permission to appeal against the High Court verdict.
News Source: New Age
SSC results to be published today [May 12, 2011]
The results of the Secondary School Certificate and equivalent examinations will be published today (May 12, 2011).
The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, will ceremonially hand over the results to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the morning.
Nahid will officially announce the results at a press briefing in the secretariat at 1:30pm.
Students can collect results from their educational institutions at 2:00pm. The results will also be available on the education ministry's website at www.educationboardresults.gov.bd.
The examinations began on February 1 and ended on March 10.
Source: New Age
Low status, poor salary keep qualified people off pry education
Primary schools are facing shortage of qualified and skilled teachers as talented people do not take up teaching as profession because of low status, poor salary and no promotion in the job.
Teachers working in government primary schools have become Class III government employees since the nationalisation of primary education in 1973. The status has not yet been upgraded.
The poor salary of a primary teacher is another reason why schools are not getting qualified teachers.
A non-trained assistant teacher gets Tk 4,700 in the pay scale. With house rent and other enumerations, an assistant teacher earns Tk 8,050 a month.
The salary is even lower for teachers in non-government primary schools where an assistant teacher gets Tk 5,100 a month.
A primary teacher in India gets three times the salary a teacher gets in Bangladesh, said Manzoor Ahmed of the BRAC University's Institute of Educational Development.
Manzoor and other educationists say that this low status and poor salary are having impact on children's education at the primary level.
'Will a university graduate want to be a Class III government employee?' Manzoor said. 'University graduates do not take up teaching in primary schools as a profession. When people who have nowhere to go are taking this profession, we should not expect qualified teachers to come in.'
Dhaka University Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury said, 'Primary education is the most important part of education as it creates the foundation of education for a student. If primary education is hampered for lack of qualified teachers, the whole education system will suffer.'
Many others take up teaching as a profession but they do not want to continue. Teaching has now become 'a transit profession' for many talented job-seekers who take up the profession for a transitional time and look for better options.
A head teacher of a primary school in the capital told New Age that two teachers had recently left her school.
Faruk Alam, an assistant teacher in the BG Press Government Primary School said, 'It is difficult to continue in a profession when you know that you will be spending your life in one position.'
A primary teacher begins an assistant teacher and he can only be the headmaster after being promoted. There is no other career option for a primary teacher.
'My friends who joined apparel factories have been promoted five to six times. But I have been as an assistant teacher for 24 years,' Faruk said.
As such, many positions of teachers are vacant in government primary schools.
The Nababerbagh Government Primary School at Mirpur in the capital has five teachers for 750 students.
In the country, 2,171 positions of headmaster and 4,731 of assistant teacher in 37,672 government primary schools are vacant, the primary and mass education minister, Afsarul Ameen, told the parliament on December 7, 2010. Directorate of Primary Education officials said the number of vacant positions had increased further.
Siddiqur Rahman of the Institute of Education Research in University of Dhaka said that it is not possible to improve the primary education system without increasing the salary and giving more career options for teachers.
Siddiqur, also a member on the committee that formulated the Education Policy 2010, said that it was possible to create more positions within the existing system.
'There are now only two positions in primary teaching — assistant teacher and the headmaster. There can be four positions — assistant teacher, senior teacher, assistant headmaster and the headmaster,' he said. 'There should be a career ladder so that a teacher can get promoted as field-level officials,' he said.
Many studies and committee reports have for long been recommending that the status and the promotion system of primary teachers should be changed.
The National Committee for Primary Education 1997 proposed a system for primary teachers so that a teacher can be promoted to be the director general of Directorate of Primary Education.
But no such recommendation has been implemented. Teachers believe that field-level educational officials and administrative officials in the primary education directorate do not want to change the status of teachers.
'If a teacher can be the director general of the directorate, it will be a problem for them as they would not get the chance to be the director general,' said a primary teacher. 'Field-level education officials will not be able to dominate us if our status is upgraded,' he said.
'The recruitment policy needs to be changed to put in place a promotion system for primary teachers. But primary education directorate officials are obstructing changes in the recruitment policy,' said Siddiqur Rahman, secretary of the Bangladesh Primary Teachers' Association.
The primary and mass education secretary, AKM Abdul Awal Mazumder, said that the ministry was trying to increase the salary of primary schoolteachers. 'The headmaster's salary will be increased very soon. We are also trying to increase assistant teacher's salary,' he said.
'We are trying to amend the recruitment policy so that primary teachers can get more chances of being promoted to field-level officials,' he added.
News Source: New Age
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