THE police arrested former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque at Dhanmondi in Dhaka in the morning on July 24. A court in the evening sent him to jail in connection with a case filed on July 6, 2025 with the Jatrabari police for the murder of a young man, shot dead in the Kajla area in the capital during the uprising on July 18, 2024. Khairul Haque is the 44th accused of the case. There are a horde of allegations, including financial fraudulence, judicial misconduct and moral depravity, against him. The prominent among them is the judicial misconduct in the appeals court verdict that involved the caretaker government system, introduced by way of the 13th amendment to the constitution on March 28, 1996 for the holding of general elections. The open-court verdict of May 10, 2011, which declared the caretaker government illegal, said that the 10th and 11th parliamentary elections could still be held under a caretaker government, but the final written verdict, released on September 16, 2012 after Khairul Haque鈥檚 retirement, noted that only elected lawmakers could form such a government and the observation on the likely continuation of the caretaker government for two more times was dropped.
This was the single-biggest event that left far-reaching implications on the peaceful transition of power, laid the consensus arrived at in 1996 waste and allowed the Awami League government to emerge as an authoritarian regime for a decade and a half in the absence of rightful power transition. Besides such moral depravity, which also constitutes a political and legal crime, there are allegations of financial fraudulence against him. Khairul Haque received Tk 3.9 million from the funds of the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina for overseas medical treatment, which happened shortly after the caretaker government verdict. Khairul Haque, who was appointed chief justice on September 27, 2010 to assume office three days later and who retired on May 17, 2011, became the chair of the Law Commission on July 13, 2013 in breach of his own verdict that retired judges would remain disqualified from holding office of profit after their retirement. And he had held onto the position until his resignation on August 13, 2024 after being reappointed to the position three times. This is unfortunate that with such grave allegations levelled against him, the government arrested him in an uprising murder case, typical of many other cases involving Awami League-era big names post the uprising.
Whilst this reflects the incapability of the government in proper case formulation, this also pushes the government off the point and lessens the gravity of the crimes. We do not support such government efforts. And, Bangladesh must come out of this culture.