Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha has received an Australian visa amid speculations over his leave from the Supreme Court.
“The chief justice and his wife are travelling to Australia soon. They will stay with their eldest daughter Suchana Sinha there,” the source said.
On Oct 2, a day before the court resumed after vacation, the government said in a notice that Justice Sinha went on leave ‘to take rest following illness’ and Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah, the most senior judge after Justice Sinha in the Appellate Division, would act as chief justice.
The announcement prompted the BNP to allege that the government forced the chief justice to go on leave and put him under ‘house arrest’ because he declared the 16th constitutional amendment illegal, scrapping parliament’s power to sack judges.
The party also expressed doubt that the leave application Law Minister Anisul Huq publicised last week was ‘fake’.
It alleged the government was plotting to send him abroad.
The chief justice visited a temple on Thursday afternoon to offer prayers on Lakshmi Puja amid the allegations brought by the BNP.
On Friday, several Supreme Court officials visited him at his official residence at Hare Road.
The Prime Minister’s International Affairs Adviser Gowher Rizvi also reportedly met him, but police stopped BNP-backed lawyers from seeing the chief justice.
Earlier, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam and the law minister skirted questions on reports that the chief justice went to the Australian High Commission in Dhaka to secure the visa.
Source: bdnews24
