Justice Mahmud leads EC search committee-Election Commission Bd

Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain of the Supreme Court’s appellate division will head the six-member search committee to pick members of the next Election Commission Bangladesh as the incumbent commission serves out tenure in February.

The other members of the search committee

Justice Obaidul Hassan of Supreme Court’s high court division

Comptroller and auditor general Masud Ahmed

Public Service Commission chairman Muhammed Sadique

Dhaka University professor Syed Manzoorul Islam

And Chittagong University pro-vice-chancellor Shireen Akhter, said a government gazette notification in the evening. The committee has been asked to submit its recommendations to the president in 10 working days.

 Earlier in the morning, the President's Office sent a letter to the cabinet division to form a six-member search committee to reconstitute the Election Commission, which would conduct the nextparliamentary election. The letter enlisting the names of the members of the search committee was issued by the office of the president Abdul Hamid, said president’s press secretary Joynal Abedin.

Receiving the letter, the cabinet division sent a summary to the prime minister and on her consent the gazette notification was issued. The tenure of Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad-led commission, which was formed by late president Zillur Rahman in 2012 through a search committee, would expire on February 8. 

The president received proposals from 31 political parties during his talks with them on the reconstitution of the commission from December 18, 2016 to January 18, 2017. Twenty of the parties proposed enactment of a law on appointment of the chief and other election commissioners saying that the president had to make the appointment under the provisions of a law as stipulated in the constitution. No such law has yet been enacted since the adoption of the constitution in 1972. Earlier in 2012, late president Zillur Rahman formed a four-member search committee following dialogue with 24 political parties before the formation of the incumbent commission headed by Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad.news source: newagebd.