An additional chief metropolitan magistrate court in Dhaka on Wednesday allowed the police to take former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque in custody for seven days for interrogation in a case filed over manipulating the Supreme Court verdict on the caretaker government system.
The court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Md Sanaullah passed the order responding to a police plea seeking the court鈥檚 permission to take the former chief justice in custody for interrogation for the sake of a proper investigation.
Shahbagh police station inspector Khalek Miah, the investigating officer of the case, made the plea after producing the former chief justice before the court.
A pro-Jamaat Supreme Court lawyer, Md Muzahidul Islam, filed the case on August 18, 2024, only 13 days after the ouster of the Awami League regime on August 5, 2024 amid a mass uprising.
The case accused the former chief justice of delivering an 鈥榰nlawful verdict鈥� and preparing a 鈥榝orged judgment鈥� while serving as a judge.
The complaint accused Khairul of corruptly and maliciously changing the caretaker government verdict after retirement.
Khairul was arrested by the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police at his Dhanmondi house in Dhaka on July 24.
The police, hours after his arrest, produced him before a metropolitan magistrate court in Dhaka, showing him arrested in a case filed for the killing of Abdul Quiyyum in the capital鈥檚 Kajla area on July 18, 2024 during the anti-quota movement. The court sent him to jail.
Khairul is named in four cases in which he is facing charges of murder, sedition, fraud, and judicial misconduct, particularly related to altering the verdict that declared the caretaker government system illegal in 2011.
Khairul is also the first former chief justice to have been arrested.
Khairul was appointed chief Justice on September 27, 2010 and he took office on September 30 that year, superseding two Appellate Division judges.
He retired on May 17, 2011, and was appointed as Law Commission chair on July 23, 2013 violating his own verdict that retired judges would be disqualified for holding offices of profit after their retirement.
He remained in that post until resigning on August 13, 2024, after multiple reappointments.
