Plea seeks stay on election schedule announcement
A petition has been filed with the High Court (HC) seeking a stay on the announcement of the schedule for the upcoming 11th parliamentary elections.
Supreme Court lawyer Eunus Ali Akanda filed the supplementary application on September 16 which sought a restriction on the announcement of the election schedule until the disposal of a rule issued earlier about taking signatures of 1 percent voters for an independent candidate, UNB reports.
The petition was placed before the vacation bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Ahmed Sohel which kept it for hearing when the Supreme Court starts its regular activities after the vacation, Eunus Ali said.
In 2011, the Election Commission (EC) published a gazette notification asking the independent candidates to submit a list of signatures of 1 percent voters of his/her respected areas in the nomination paper while the party nominated candidates need not to submit such a list.
In 2014, Eunus Ali filed a writ petition with the HC challenging the EC directive terming it discriminatory and contradictory with the Constitution while the court issued a rule seeking explanation as to why the gazette notification of EC would not be declared illegal.
The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Law Ministry and Home secretaries were asked to respond to the rule within June 9, 2014.
The rule was yet to be disposed of as the respondents have yet given their replies, Eunus Ali said.
