DHAKA — The Bangladesh Bar Council has temporarily suspended the legal practice license of Masdar Hossain, a former district judge and Supreme Court lawyer, and asked him to show cause within 15 days why his license should not be permanently revoked.
The decision was taken “unanimously” at an emergency meeting of the Bar Council, according to a news bulletin issued Wednesday.
A national daily newspaper recently published a report alleging the former judge, who is famous for the Masdar Hossain case, had embezzled 1.25 crore taka (about US$1.05 million) from a client. The Bar Council bulletin said the issue came to its attention through the report published in a national daily on April 12, which said Hossain had embezzled 1.25 crore taka from a client. The published news stated that lawyer Masdar Hossain had already admitted to the embezzlement. Considering the “primary truth and the question of professional ethics” of this allegation of “professional misconduct and moral turpitude” seriously, the Bar Council convened the emergency meeting. With the preliminary elements and evidentiary basis of the allegations existing, the meeting unanimously decided to temporarily suspend Hossain’s license.
The bulletin also said Hossain’s legal license would remain temporarily suspended until the matter is finally resolved.
However, denying the allegations in a written statement, Hossain said: “It is my firm belief that a particular group has, with a specific purpose, published misleading and exaggerated news in a planned manner to defame me.”
Hossain, a retired senior district and sessions judge, was the secretary general of the BCS Judicial Association in 1995. He and his fellow judges filed the case to separate the judiciary from the executive branch, which became known as the “Masdar Hossain case.” After retiring from the judicial service, Hossain returned to legal practice. He served as a member of the Judiciary Reform Commission formed during the recent interim government.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report