Court Correspondent:

The apex court has scheduled a hearing on Jul 11 for a review petition challenging the ruling that declared the 16th amendment to the constitution, granting parliament the power to remove judges, illegal and void.

A seven-strong bench of the Appellate Division led by Justice M Enayetur Rahim set the date for the hearing on Thursday.

The application for hearing the review petition was placed in the court by writ petitioner lawyer Manzil Morshed. Attorney General AM Amin Uddin was present at the time.

“The review petition against the Sixteenth Amendment judgement was on the agenda of the regular and full bench of the Appellate Division. I mentioned it in the morning for a hearing but as the chief justice was not present, the Appellate bench headed by Justice M Enayetur Rahim fixed Jul 11 for hearing the petition,” Morshed said afterwards.

The High Court declared the 16th amendment to the constitution, restoring the parliament’s power to remove judges, illegal in 2016.

On May 5 that year, a special bench of the High Court consisting of Justice Mainul Islam Chowdhury, Justice Kazi Reza-ul Haque, and Justice Ashraful Kamal declared the Sixteenth Amendment invalid based on the majority opinion.

On Aug 11 of that year, the verdict was published on the Supreme Court website. Later, the state appealed against the decision.

The Appellate Division appointed amicus curiae to hear the appeal on Feb 8, 2017. Among the 10 amicus curiae in the appeal hearing, only Ajmalul Hossain gave an opinion in favour of the 16th Amendment.

The nine other amicus curiae, including Kamal Hossain, MI Farooqui, Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan, former attorney general AF Hassan Ariff, Amirul Islam, Justice TH Khan, Rokanuddin Mahmud, Fida M Kamal, and AJ Mohammad Ali, presented their views against the amendment.

On May 8 of that year, the hearing of the appeal against the verdict of the High Court began and lasted for 11 days.

Later, on Jul 3, 2017, a seven-member Appellate Division bench headed by the then chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha upheld the High Court verdict declaring the 16th amendment illegal and void.