The government on Sunday withdrew district and sessions judge Mosammat Qamrunnaher from the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 in Dhaka and attached her to the law ministry in the wake of widespread protests against her judgement in which she recommended a time frame for filing rape cases.
The law ministry on Sunday afternoon issued a notification in this regard.
Earlier in the day, chief justice Syed Mahmud Hossain asked judge Qamrunnaher not to sit at the court at 9:30am and directed the law ministry to take initiative to attach her to the ministry after withdrawing her judicial powers, said SC spokesperson Mohammad Saifur Rahman in a statement to the media.
Saifur said in the statement that the chief justice took the decision in consultation with some senior judges of the Supreme Court.
Later, a high official at the SC registrar office phoned judge Qamrunnaher not to take seat at the court, the tribunal’s public prosecutor Afroza Farhan told New Age quoting the judge.
Afroza said that the typing of the full verdict passed by the judge in the Raintree Hotel rape case was not complete yet.
‘The government will appeal against the verdict,’ she added.
Law minister Anisul Huq at a press briefing at his secretariat office later in the day said that taking action against the judge was necessary as her observation in the judgement was embarrassing for other judges and gave a wrong direction for the law enforcement agencies.
‘She will be asked to show cause. She will be asked to explain why she made that observation,’ said the law minister responding to a query.
He also said that the observation made by the judge went against laws and basic human rights provided by Article 31 of the constitution, adding that the judge has violated both laws and the constitution.
Attorney general AM Amin Uddin at a separate news briefing welcomed the action taken against the judge, stating that the lower court has no authority to make observations in judgements.
Qamrunnaher's withdrawal came a day after law minister Anisul Huq told reporters at a discussion on Saturday that he would request the chief justice to take action against the judge for making an ‘illegal and unconstitutional observation’ in a verdict in the Raintree Hotel rape case.
Anisul, also a Supreme Court lawyer, called the observation illegal, stating that the Code of Criminal Procedure provides no time frame for filing a case after the occurrence of a criminal offence.
Rights activists and lawyers still continued protesting against the judge’s observation while people from different walks of life brought out a procession from Shahbagh in Dhaka on November 12 protesting at the observation.
Eighty eminent citizens in a joint statement on Sunday criticised the observation made by judge Qamrunnaher.
They viewed that the judge’s ‘illegal and unconstitutional’ observation would spread a wrong message to the nation and encourage sexual violence against women.
The observation would also diminish the possibility of getting justice in rape cases, they argued.
On November 11, Qamrunnaher, as the judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 in Dhaka, announced a short verdict acquitting all the five accused youths, including Shafat Ahmed, son of the Apan Jewellers owner, of the charges of raping two university students at Raintree Hotel in the capital’s Banani area in 2017.
Judge Qamrunnaher in the verdict recommended that the police should record a rape case within the 72 hours of the incident and should refuse to record rape cases 72 hours after the offence.
The tribunal judge made the observation referring to an opinion given by the doctor who prepared the medical report of the Raintree Hotel rape victims.
The doctor said that the medical test could not ascertain a rape incident if the victim was not tested within the 72 hours of the incident.
The judge found that the Raintree Hotel rape case was filed 38 days after the reported incident and no scientific evidence could establish the accusations as the victims were tested 38 days after of the offence.
Judge Qamrunnaher announced the rape case verdict, acquitting, in addition to Shafat, Shafat’s friend Shadman Sakif, Nayem Ashraf, Shafat’s driver Billal Hossain and bodyguard Rahmat Ali.
The judge also rebuked the prosecution for their failure to prove the charges and waste public time, saying that the police investigation was poor.
While delivering the verdict, the judge also criticised the police investigator for submitting the charge sheet even though no evidence was found against the five accused.
She castigated the police investigator for placing the charge sheet despite having no complementary evidence.
On March 28, 2017, a university student filed the case with the Banani police station, alleging that she, along with her friend, was raped at the hotel while they were attending Shafat’s birthday.
On June 8, 2017, Ismot Ara Ame, an inspector of the Women Support and Investigation Division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, submitted the charge sheet against the five accused.
The tribunal judge said that the case had no element in order to submit the charge sheet.
Submitting the charge sheet in such a case was wasting the time of the court and it was deplorable, said the judge.
‘This type of tendency should stop,’ she added.
Of the five accused, Shafat and Nayem were indicted for rape and the rest for aiding and abetting the crime under Section 9 (1) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.
The judge, referring to the confessional statements of Shafat and Nayem, observed in the verdict that the two young men, in an intoxicated condition, had intercourses with the two victims with their consent, when they were all drunk.
The judge also said that neither the testimonies by the 22 witnesses nor the circumstantial evidence could prove the rape beyond doubt.
The judge also did not accept the confessional statements of the four accused as evidence, observing that their confessional statements recorded by the judicial magistrates were not voluntary as they were tortured in custody in order to extract such confessions as argued by the defence counsels.
She also did not believe the first information report filed by the victims and parts of the judicial statements because they, during the cross-examination, said that these were not true.
Judge Qamrunnaher carried out the trial of the case by recording depositions of 10 prosecution witnesses while other judges heard 12 other witnesses.
She took the charge of the trial from Khademul Kayesh, judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-2 of Dhaka.
Another judge of the tribunal-2 on July 13, 2017 started the trial by framing the charges against the accused.