Online Desk: The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court today gave Jamaat-e-Isami two months’ time to prepare a concise statement of the party’s appeal against a High Court verdict that scrapped its registration with the Election Commission. A concise statement contains the points on which the appellant’s lawyers will place arguments before the court.

Today, the apex court said if Jamaat-e-Islami did not submit the concise statement in two months, its appeal would be defaulted (dismissed). A three-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique passed the order following a petition filed by the writ petitioner for hearing the appeal. The two other judges of the bench are Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim.

Senior lawyer Tanya Amir appeared for the writ petitioner while lawyer Joynal Abedin Tuhin represented Jamaat-e-Islami during today’s proceedings. Following a writ petition, the HC in a landmark verdict on August 1, 2013, declared illegal Jamaat’s registration with the EC. The commission that same year suspended the registration. Rezaul Haque Chandpuri, then secretary general of Bangladesh Tariqat Federation, along with 24 others had filed a writ petition with the HC on January 25, 2009, seeking its order declaring Jamaat’s registration illegal.

The petitioners said Jamaat was a religion-based political party and it didn’t believe in the independence and sovereignty of Bangladesh. The EC scrapped the registration of Jamaat-e-Islami in October 2018, making it clear that the party will not be able to contest the upcoming national election. In the verdict, two judges of the three-member HC bench declared the registration illegal. However, the other judge disagreed with the decision of his two colleagues. Jamaat then filed the appeal with the apex court challenging the HC verdict.