A writ petition was filed on Monday seeking a High Court directive on the government authorities to restore the original oath-taking process outlined in the Provisional Constitution of Bangladesh Order, 1972.
The petition calls for reinstating the provision that mandated the chief justice administer the oath of office to the president, aligning with the original intent and spirit of the 1972 constitution.
Poet, essayist, lyricist, and columnist Shahidullah Faraizee filed the petition. He named the cabinet secretary, law secretary, and Supreme Court registrar general as respondents.
The High Court bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain is expected to hear the petition on Tuesday, Faraizee鈥檚 lawyer Omar Farouq said.
Faraizee contented in his petition that the 15th Amendment, which altered in 2011 the oath-taking process for the president, was unconstitutional and contradicted the 1972 constitution.
He sought a directive to reinstate Clause 10 of the Provisional Constitution of Bangladesh Order, 1972, which originally mandates, 鈥楾he Chief Justice of Bangladesh administers the oath of office to the President.鈥�
The president administers the oath to the prime minister, ministers, state ministers, and deputy ministers and the cabinet prescribes the form of the oath.
Faraizee highlighted that this procedure remained unchanged until the fourth amendment, after which the speaker replaced the chief justice as the official administering the president鈥檚 oath.
Although this change was briefly reversed after the fifth amendment, the 15th amendment reinstated the speaker鈥檚 role, sidelining the chief justice once again, he added.
Faraizee claimed that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Sheikh Hasina amended the constitution to consolidate control over state institutions, including the judiciary, executive, and legislature.
He asserted that Mujib changed the oath-taking provision through the fourth amendment, replacing the chief justice with the speaker.
Faraizee said that his daughter Hasina, being a prime minister, later reinforced this change through the 15th amendment.
He contended that these constitutional changes were driven by political motives, diminishing the role of the chief justice and disrupting the separation of powers among state institutions.
The restoration of oath taking provision came after the High Court in a verdict on December 17, 2024 declared key provisions of the 15th amendment to the constitution illegal for undermining the basic structure of the constitution, including democracy, the will of the people, and judicial independence.
The bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Debasish Roy Chowdhury, in the verdict, however, refrained from giving any decision on several other changes brought to the constitution by the 15th amendment, leaving their validity to be decided by successive parliaments in accordance with constitutional and legal principles.
The bench had pronounced the verdict scrapping the amendments that abolished the election-time non-party caretaker government system and restricted amendment to certain articles of the constitution, among other changes.
The High Court came up with the verdict in two public interest litigation writ petitions filed 13 years after the amendment was enacted by the parliament during Sheikh Hasina鈥檚 Awami League government in 2011.
The petitions were filed after the fall of the Hasina-led Awami League regime amid a mass uprising on August 5, 2024.