A newly registered political party, Insaniyat Biplab Bangladesh, have now filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, seeking the dissolution of parliament and rescheduling of the 12th Jatiya Sangshad elections under the direct supervision of the Army.
The complaint seeks directives from the highest court of the land to appoint the Army with magistracy power to maintain law and order and oversee what would be a rescheduled election, and till then, a return to martial law in effect.
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Speaking to UNB after filing the case, Insaniyat-chairman Imam Hayat said, “In the last election, we observed that the ruling MPs misused government power in their respective constituencies and used the administration, police and their own armed men to occupy the polling centres and obstruct others from casting their votes.”
He said: "It is impossible to have an impartial election by retaining the parliament. In order to protect the country and democracy through free and fair elections, we have filed a writ petition in the High Court seeking an order to dissolve the parliament before conducting elections under the direct supervision of the Army heading the interim government."
The first writ was dismissed in the court of Justice Iqbal Kabir and Justice Biswajit Debnath in December. After sending legal notices to the EC and others, a case was filed for reconsideration which was heard on December 27, 2023 and the same court that disposed of the first writ expressed reluctance to hear the case. That led to the case filed today which number is CMP 03/2024.
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Just eight months before the election, in May 2023, the previously unheard of political party, platform, forum or whatever calling itself Insaniyat Biplab Bangladesh got the EC’s nod to be registered as a political party that could run for election, for which it was assigned the 'Apple' electoral symbol (marka).
Eventually they did not submit any nomination papers by the November 30 deadline, to take part in the election scheduled for January 7.