Gulam Rabbani :
Advocate Md Eunus Ali Akond is a well-known name in the Supreme Court of the country. He files public interest litigations regularly along with his other cases. But the level of his interest in filing the public interest litigations is always much more.
Some people think that he files more and more public interest litigations to get media coverage easily or to present himself as a celebrity lawyer to the justice-seekers through media coverage. However, in most of the public interest litigations, he did not get an order in his favor.
He recently placed a petition with the High Court challenging the legality of ongoing lockdowns and sought an order for a judicial inquiry into the altercation involving a female doctor, an executive magistrate, and law enforcers over movement pass on April 18.
Upon hearing the petition, the High Court warned him for filing writ petitions as public interest litigation without being an aggrieved person.
“Don’t move any writ petition out of hobby in this court. If we reject your petitions, we will impose a heavy penalty on you. The decision is yours whether you will move the petitions,” the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Sardar Md Rashed Jahangir told Eunus Ali.
The lawyer said he has filed more than one hundred public interest litigations so far, and secured High Court orders in his favor in only 10/12 cases. But there are some important judgments also.
Following a public interest litigation filed by Eunus Ali Akond, the High Court on June 1 in 2016 declared two Sections of the Governing Body and Managing Committee Regulations, 2009 as illegal as those allowed MPs to lead the Managing Committees or Governing Bodies of private schools and colleges.
As per the order, no Member of Parliament will be allowed to hold the post of Chairman of the Managing Committee or the Governing Body of any private schools and colleges. The High Court bench of Justice Zinat Ara and Justice AKM Zahirul Hoque passed the order. Later the Appellate Division also upheld the verdict.
Eunus Ali Akond was enrolled as an advocate of the Dhaka Judge Court in 1989, of the High Court in 1991 and of the Appellate Division in 2015. He has dealt about 8000 cases so far, said the lawyer while talking to The New Nation.
He has participated in the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) election many times and minimum 10 times contested the President post of the SCBA, but never qualified. I participate in the SCBA election as part of the protest to the panel-based bipartisan electoral culture, the lawyer said adding that he is fighting to bring back the rule of law, independence of judiciary and democracy in the society.
Eunus Ali tried several times to get Awami League nomination to appear in parliamentary elections from Barishal-5 constituency, but failed. Finally he was nominated by the Jatiya Party to participate in the parliament elections in 2018 from Dhaka-8 constituency.
If the voting didn’t take place at night I would have won the elections, the lawyer said.
He uses PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) with his name, but when asked he could not tell the name of the university from where he had obtained the degree. “I have received the degree from an American university, but I have forgotten the name of the university,” also said the lawyer.
On October 12 last year, the Appellate Division of Supreme Court barred lawyer Md Eunus Ali from practicing law before both its Appellate and High Court Divisions for three months for committing gross contempt of court by posting three derogatory comments about the judiciary on his Facebook wall.
The court also fined him Tk 25,000, in default, he will have to serve 15 days of imprisonment. A seven-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain delivered the verdict after hearing a contempt of court rule issued against him. Recently he again started the practice with the courts.
Some other lawyers and organizations also file public interest litigation with the High Court. Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association or BELA, Children’s Charity Bangladesh Foundation and others are pioneers regarding the issue.
These organizations have filed many cases in the public interest in real sense and received instructions from the High Court. But nowadays the High Court judges are getting angry in some cases as some lawyers are trying to take advantage by filing a public interest litigation.
