Hearing on legality of Shameem Hoque's candidacy on Jan 2

The Chamber Court of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has fixed January 2 to hold a hearing on a plea challenging the verdict that allowed Awami League's nominated candidate from the Faridpur-3 constituency Shameem Hoque to participate in the upcoming polls.

Faridpur-3 independent candidate A. K. Azad on Thursday moved the court.

A.K. Azad on December 8 applied to the Election Commission to cancel the candidature of Shamim Haque, alleging that he has dual citizenship.

Later, Shamim Haque presented some documents to the EC. In light of the situation, the EC left the decision on the legality of Shamim Haque's candidacy for the upcoming national elections pending. If he is found to possess dual citizenship, he will not be eligible to participate in the polls.

Azad’s lawyer Golam Kibria said, “Awami League candidate Shamim Haque is a citizen of the Netherlands. At the time of scrutinization of nomination papers, independent candidate A.K. Azad placed a written complaint to the returning officer in this regard. However, the returning officer declared Shamim Haque's nomination paper valid without cancelling it. An appeal has been filed to the Election Commission on Friday against this order of the returning officer.”

He further said, “Shamim Haque's previous passport number of Netherlands is BESHC8751, date of birth is written on 21 October 1960. Shamim Haque recently submitted an application to the Faridpur passport office to issue his Bangladeshi passport. He has marked a tick in the dual citizenship box in column no.25 of that application. In column 26, it is asked to mention the name of the country if the candidate is a citizen of another country; there he mentioned the Netherlands. Column 27 mentions his Netherlands passport number bearing BY60F0J74.”

The EC on December 15 decided to cancel the candidacy of Shameem Hoque. Later, when Shameem Hoque filed a writ, the High Court upheld the decision of the EC.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court Chamber Court stayed a High Court order that scrapped Shameem Hoque's candidature. The court also ordered allowing him to participate in the election.

/KN/