Bangladesh judge relieved of duties after pronouncing controversial judgement on rape case

Amid uproar on social media, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh ordered to relieve a woman judge of court duties for her controversial remarks in a four-year-old rape case. According to local media reports, Judge Begum Mosammat Kamrunnahar Nahar of Dhaka’s Seventh Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, while hearing a rape case, ordered to release the five youngsters accused of raping two university students. Apart from releasing the youngsters, she directed the police officers not to register an FIR after 72 hours of the rape. The local media reports said the two victims were raped in two separate rooms of the plush Raintree Hotel. Subsequently, the victims filed a case with the Banani police station a month after the incident.

According to a report by the Daily Star newspaper, Supreme Court spokesman Mohammad Saifur Rahman said that Judge Kamrunnahar has been relieved of her court duties from Monday. "The decision to suspend the judge has been taken in consultation with other senior justices. The Supreme Court sent a letter to the Ministry of Law to temporarily revoke judicial powers and withdraw her from her current workplace and assign her to the Ministry of Law’s Law and Justice Department," read the statement released by the Supreme Court. It is worth mentioning that Judge Kamrunnahar was hearing a rape case on 11 November in which she acquitted all five accused due to lack of evidence.

Observation on rape cases was illegal: SC

She observed, "The police officer wasted the public's time and no rape case should be filed 72 hours after the crime." "It proved that the university students had consensual sex before the incident," bdnews24.com quoted her observation. Law Minister Anisul Huq said, "Her observation gives wrong instructions to law enforcement agencies. Hence, it was necessary to take action against the judge. This too will go ahead in a completely legal way." According to Huq, the woman judge was given a show-cause notice and asked her to clarify the reasons for making such a controversial observation. "Let me make one thing clear – I don’t want to talk about the content of the verdict. But her observation asking the police not to record a case 72 hours after rape is totally illegal and unconstitutional," Huq said. 

(With inputs from PTI)

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