Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, who was allegedly forced to leave the country about seven years ago as a sitting chief justice, has said he is ready to return to Bangladesh and prove that all the cases filed against him are completely false and fabricated if the government ensures his security.
“I will go back to Bangladesh. I’m now waiting for a green signal,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Star from abroad via video call on August 14.
Justice Sinha, known as SK Sinha, described how then prime minister Sheikh Hasina had kept him under tremendous pressure and forced him to leave the country through DGFI personnel as “he fought for the independence of the judiciary, ignoring her directives and interference”.
The former chief justice claimed that the conflict between the two started as he took some initiatives to prevent the lower courts from granting bail to notorious smugglers and corrupt persons after being appointed the 21st chief justice of the country in January 2015.
The conflict reached its peak as Justice Sinha ordered the law ministry to make the disciplinary rules for lower court judges keeping powers in the hands of the Supreme Court instead of the executive and declined to deliver judgement in the 16th amendment (SC judges’ removal) case in favour of the government in July 2017.
“My last days in Bangladesh were very appalling, which cannot be expressed in words. Because it is a question of realisation. I, as a sitting chief justice, had been kept under house arrest. I was not allowed to communicate with anybody. My internet connections were disconnected. Nobody was allowed to meet me. Security forces [intelligence] would stand guard around my home. One of my staffers was beaten up while he was entering my house. Saiful Abedin, the then chief of DGFI, used to disturb me at midnight and put pressure on me to resign and leave the country.”
He said his colleagues (judges) of the Appellate Division of the SC, being influenced by the government, refused to sit with him in the court and told him that the High Court judges would not cooperate with him, putting him under tremendous mental pressure.
“I had then thought I have no right to stay in the country.”
On July 3, 2017, the SC bench led by then chief justice Sinha delivered the verdict and scrapped the 16th amendment to the constitution. It means the parliament lost its powers to remove the SC judges for incapacity or misconduct. The Supreme Judicial Council, a body of the chief justice and two senior-most judges of the Appellate Division, got back the jurisdiction.
Justice Sinha said he was called to the Bangabhaban the previous night (July 2) for a meeting with then president Abdul Hamid, premier Hasina, law minister Anisul Huq, now in police custody, and attorney general Mahbubey Alam (now dead).
He said that at the meeting, Hasina asked him to deliver the verdict the following day (July 3) in favour of the government, but he declined for the sake of independence of the judiciary.
“I could figure that the prime minister perhaps convinced the other judges of the apex court bench to deliver judgement in favour of the government. At one stage, the arguments with the prime minister heated up and I told her that I would resign right away. At that, she requested me not to resign and said the people would take it very badly if I resigned. She told me to go ahead as I wished.”
Justice Sinha said that after all the seven judges of the Appellate Division unanimously delivered the verdict scrapping the 16th amendment on July 3, 2017, the ruling party members of parliament, including Hasina, blasted him for over five hours.
“Then I thought the government might not allow me to stay in the country. I hurriedly completed other relevant proceedings [including releasing the full text of the verdict]. I went to Japan to join a conference of the chief justices of the Asia Pacific countries. After getting out of the conference room, I got a phone call from DGFI and was told not to return home. A day later, I came back to Bangladesh through Singapore. After I landed at Dhaka airport, I discovered that five to six DGFI members surrounded me. They were not allowing me to go to my officials present there. A tall man told me that they wanted to have a cup of coffee with me and requested me to give them five minutes. I asked them to mind their language and maintain the protocol. Incensed, I said ‘get lost’. They wanted to go with me in my car on the pretext of ensuring my security. I told them that I have a car and security and I don’t need them and left. I thought it was another bad signal.
“I went to the court [SC]. One day, I just finished my work and the DGFI chief came to my office. He told me that the prime minister herself sent him and she asked me to resign and leave the country. I shouted ‘who are you and what are you saying?’ He [the DGFI chief] said they implement the orders of only the prime minister, not the law minister or attorney general … I asked him to get lost. Then I returned home and was put under house arrest.
“The Supreme Court registrar general told me that they had nothing to do. He told me to take leave for some days. I got mentally upset. My secretary prepared an application for a seven-day leave and I signed it. I returned home in the evening. I found all the gates of my residence closed. Military personnel in plainclothes occupied all the things inside my residence. My internet connections were disconnected.
“Around 10:00am the following day, I was doing my work at my residential office. Md Abdul Wahhab Miah called me over the phone and wanted to meet me. I asked him to come to my house. He [Wahhab] asked me to go to his residence. He said other judges are in his house. Instantly, I could sense that there was a conspiracy here. I called them to come to my house. Then they came and told me that they would not sit with me in the court. I could realise that the ground beneath my feet was vanishing. Being influenced by the government, they [judges] made this illegal decision.”
Amid this situation, Justice Sinha left Dhaka on the night of October 13, 2017.
Justice Wahhab, who was then the senior-most judge of the Appellate Division, had performed the functions of the chief justice in the absence of Justice Sinha.
During his talks to this newspaper, Justice Sinha congratulated Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus on his becoming the interim government chief adviser and Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed the new chief justice.
The former chief justice said he is ready to return to Bangladesh.
“I will go to the country if my security is ensured. I’m waiting for a green signal. I will surrender before the court concerned and prove that the cases filed against me are false.”
Justice Sinha, who resigned as the chief justice on November 11, 2017, while abroad, stands accused in three money-laundering cases. He has been convicted and sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment in a case and two other cases are under investigation.
Daily Star