The Election Commission published a gazette notification declaring BNP leader Ishraque Hossain as the mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) to implement a court verdict as no opinion was received from the Law Ministry within the stipulated timeframe, Election Commissioner Abdul Fazal Md Sanaullah said on Wednesday.
“We implemented the court order (through publishing the gazette) to avoid any deviation from the directive of the court,” he told reporters after a meeting of the Election Commission in the capital.
The meeting was held with Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin in the chair, while all four election commissioners and the EC senior secretary were present.
Sanaullah said the EC waited until 5 pm on Sunday last for the law ministry’s opinion. As the EC didn’t receive any reply by then, the commission published the gazette to comply with the Election Tribunal’s order.
"We were obliged to resolve it within 10 days. We resolved it,” he said, replying to a question over the gazette notification that declared Ishraque Hossain as the DSCC mayor without receiving the opinion from the Law Ministry.
“We sought an opinion as soon as possible. April 25 was the tenth day, that day was a Friday. We took two days. We waited until 5:00pm on Sunday. Since we did not receive the reply, we implemented the court order so that there would be no deviation," he said.
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The EC on April 27 last issued the gazette notification, but the next day Law Adviser Asif Nazrul claimed the EC acted before receiving opinion from the Law Ministry.
On March 27 last, Judge of the Election Tribunal in Dhaka Md Nurul Islam nullified the result that had declared Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh elected in the 2020 DSCC election and instead declared Ishraque Hossain the winner.
The DSCC election was held on February 1, 2020, where Awami League’s Taposh was declared winner “defeating Ishraque by nearly 190,000 votes”.
Taposh assumed office on May 16 that year and the first meeting of the elected body was held in early June. So, the five-year term of the elected body is set to end by June this year.