Staff Reporter :
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday gave permission to 110 physicians of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) to file an appeal against a High Court order that declared their appointment as illegal.
A five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the order after hearing five separate petitions filed by the aggrieved doctors.
The court also asked the doctors to submit a concised statement of their appeals within four weeks after the SC reopens on October 30 following its annual vacation.
In 2010, the High Court declared the recruitment process as illegal for anomalies.
The doctors filed the petitions seeking review of its order that rejected their appeal to file petition against the HC order. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam stood for the BSMMU, while senior lawyers Dr Kamal Hossain and Rokanuddin Mahmud stood for the physicians.
The SC on August 29, sought opinion on how the 111 qualified physicians of BSMMU, who had been appointed in 2006, could be retained in service.
The BSMMU at its 20th Syndicate meeting decided to create 200 posts of medical officers on May 26, 2005.
As per the decision, a circular was issued on October 18, 2005 for the recruitment.
Iqbal Arsalan, the then Secretary General of Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad, filed a writ petition with the HC challenging the legality of the circular.
The HC stayed the recruitment process and issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain as to why the recruitment advertisement should not be declared illegal in January 2006.
Upon filing the petition by the BSMMU, the HC vacated the stay order asking them to keep the number of newly recruited physicians under 200.
The University authority appointed 194 physicians on March 1, 2006 and made the service of 174 of them permanent in 2008.
During the final hearing on the rule, the HC declared the recruitment process of BSMMU illegal on December 14, 2010.
Later, some 170 physicians filed a petition with the Appellate Division of the SC seeking a stay order on the HC verdict and a filed a leave to appeal petition with the SC in 2011.
The Appellate Division dismissed the leave to appeal petition on February 22, 2016. Finally, the 111 physicians filed a review petitions on the matter, as one of them died during the proceedings.
Dr Sharif Bhuiyan, a lawyer for the petitioners said, the court might decide whether his clients can remain in service after hearing their appeal.
