Staff Reporter :
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday asked the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to remove derogatory comments about the judiciary posted by a Supreme Court lawyer, Yunus Ali Akond, on his facebook wall and to block his account immediately.
The apex court at the same time suspended the enrolment of advocate Yunus Ali Akond as a lawyer for the next two weeks for posting the comments about the judiciary on his personal facebook account recently.
The court also directed the lawyer not to practice law before the Appellate Division and High Court Division of the SC for two weeks.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain passed the order on a Suo Moto move after additional attorney general Murad Reza had placed Yunus Ali’s facebook statuses before the court.
After hearing the matter the court also summoned Yunus Ali to appear before this court at 9:30am on October 11 to explain his conduct.
Senior Supreme Court lawyers told that this was probably the first time that the Supreme Court had ordered the BTRC to block a certain person’s facebook account.
Mr Murad Reza appealed to the court to contempt advocate Yunus Ali saying that his comments were ‘serious contempt of court’.
Later in the afternoon, the court heard the statements of senior Supreme Court lawyers Fida M Kamal, Monsurul Haque Chowdhury, Abdul Matin Khasru, Supreme Court Bar Association President AM Amin Uddin, lawyer Manzill Murshid and Supreme Court Bar Association secretary Ruhul Quddus Kazal over the issue and passed order.
Earlier on August 12 this year, the SC had issued a contempt of court rule against another Supreme Court lawyer Syed Mamun Mahbub for posting a derogatory status about the Chief Justice and the judiciary on facebook on August 11.
Later the Appellate Division acquitted Mamun Mahbub as he offered unconditional apology to the Supreme Court for his conduct. The SC lawyer told the apex court that he had mistakenly used a word while posting a status on his facebook profile, which he deleted later.
