A top Bangladeshi court on Monday rejected a 28-year-old petition seeking removal of Islam as the state religion of the Muslim-majority nation, a provision added in the constitution by a former military dictator in 1988.
“The petitioners do not have the locus standi (the right to appear in a court with the petition),” ruled a special bench of Justice Naima Haider, Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque, and Justice Ashraful Kamal. The bench rejected the petition filed by 15 distinguished Bangladeshis immediately after Islam was declared as the State religion in 1988 by then military-ruler General H M Ershad under the Eighth Amendment Bill.
Monday’s ruling comes nearly a month after Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha constituted the three-member bench as the legal initiative to drop Islam as Bangladesh’s state religion was revived in a belated but routine course.
Ten of the 15 petitioners, including a former chief justice and several secular academics and writers died since they filed the petition forming a grouping called “committee to oppose autocracy and religious communalism”.
Court officials said the bench was expected to come up with the detailed verdict in writing later but in its brief judgement the Bench rejected the writ saying the petitioners did not have the locus standi since they had filed it as an organisation and not as individuals to justify their personal grievances against the provision.
On March 1 the bench had asked the grouping to explain if they had the right to challenge the legality of Article 2A of the Constitution that declares Islam as the state religion.