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leadership to hold the meeting to decide on barring pro-AL lawyers from contesting the election, as the party’s activities are banned.

Accordingly, the meeting was held, and the decision was made based on the opinions of general members, he said.

Lawyers who were supporters of Sammilita Ainjibi Samannay Parishad or Bangabandhu Awami Ainjibi Parishad, backed by the AL, and who held positions in those bodies, will not be permitted to run in the SCBA polls under the decision, he said.

Mahfuzur added that the decision will be communicated to the SCBA election commission, led by former High Court Justice Miftah Uddin Choudhury, to take necessary measures.

He said the bar election will be free and fair. Lawyers backed by BNP, Jamaat, and other political parties can participate. More than 8,000 lawyers are registered as voters.

The two-day polls will be held to elect leaders to 14 executive posts of the SCBA, including president and secretary, for the next year, as per a previous decision of its incumbent executive body.

The last SCBA election was held in March 2024 and was highly controversial. Pro-BNP lawyers won four key posts, including that of president, while AL-backed candidates secured 10 other posts, including that of secretary.

Vote counting was halted for a day following an altercation, allegedly triggered by interference from a group of outsiders on behalf of a candidate. The outsiders attacked some lawyers present at the polling centre in the SCBA auditorium, where the votes were scheduled to be counted.

Talking to this correspondent, lawyer Shah Monjurul Hoque, member of Bangabandhu Awami Ainjibi Parishad, who was elected secretary of the SCBA in that election, said that preventing pro-Liberation lawyers from taking part in the polls is an illegal, arbitrary, and undemocratic decision.

“During the 15 years of Awami League rule, there were no major disturbances in the Supreme Court Bar Association elections. Some irregularities occurred only in the final year due to the actions of lawyers Ruhul Quddus Kazal and Nahid Sultana Juthi. Excluding the pro-Liberation forces from the election is condemnable.”

Following the toppling of the Sheikh Hasina-led government on August 5, 2024, pro-AL lawyer leaders stopped attending the SCBA proceedings.

On August 18, 2024, a section of SC lawyers formed an interim executive committee of the SCBA, with pro-BNP lawyers AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon and Md Ruhul Quddus Kazal, now the attorney general, as its president and secretary respectively for the 2024-25 session.

Ruhul Quddus, however, refused to discharge the responsibilities as the committee’s secretary, as he had been elected to the same post several times earlier.

SCBA Assistant Secretary Mahfuzur was later given the charge.