Staff Reporter :Former Supreme Court Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik yesterday sent a letter to the Chief Justice (CJ) Surendra Kumar Sinha requesting the CJ to accept all the judgments and orders he wrote after his retirement.Shamsuddin, who retired about four months ago, also informed the CJ that he has completed writing the judgments and orders that were pending with him.Justice Manik has written around 15 judgments and 70 orders which were pending with him.In the letter, Shamsuddin also requested the CJ to ask justice Md Abdul Wahab Mia to receive the judgments and orders written by him.Shamsuddin was the member of the Appellate Division bench where Justice Wahab Mia was the presiding judge.The CJ recently criticised the judges who wrote verdicts after their retirement.In a message on the occasion of the first anniversary of his taking office on January 19, Surendra Kumar Sinha, who is the 21st Chief Justice of Bangladesh, criticised the judges who make delay in writing judgment.”Some judges make delay in writing the judgement. Some of them even continue to write the verdict long after their retirement which goes against the law and the constitution,” he then said.In the wake of the controversy triggered by the CJ’s remarks, Law Minister Anisul Huq on January 26 told parliament that writing verdict after retirement is not illegal and unconstitutional.Justice Shamsuddin, who is now in city, briefed the journalists about his letter yesterday on the SC premises on the day when the activities of the court was running which is unprecedented.He alleged that he couldn’t submit his written judgements and orders with the SC due to directive of the Chief Justice. “I had requested Justice Abdul Wahhab Mia to accept the judgments and orders, but he refused to accept them, saying the judgments and orders written by the retired judges cannot be accepted under the chief justice’s instruction,” he added.Justice Shamsuddin commented that SK Sinha’s behaviour goes against the `Constitution, the law and the practice.He also said that he has completed writing all the 15 judgments and around 70 orders after his retirement. Justice Shamsuddin said he no longer had staff to help him so the verdicts were handwritten. They have meanwhile been sent to the Chief Justice. “All my staff members have been withdrawn. So, one of my men took my letter to the Chief Justice on Thursday evening. I don’t think he received it because it was really late. So, I sent it again this morning,” he said.
