Who’s who in search committee?
The Supreme Court’s Appellate Division judge Syed Mahmud Hossain will head the search committee formed to pick individuals for appointing election commissioners, officials concerned told Prothom Alo.
The officials concerned further confirmed to the newspaper that a High Court division judge, Obaidul Hassan, is also on the search committee formed by the president on Wednesday morning.
President Abdul Hamid has formed a six-strong search committee and a gazette notification has been issued in this regard.
The search committee will have to suggest prospective names in the next 10 working days.
The four other members of the committee are: Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) chairman and former election commission secretary Muhammed Sadique, Comptroller and Auditor General Masud Ahmed, Dhaka University’s English literature professor Syed Manzoorul Islam and Chittagong University pro-vice chancellor Shireen Akhter.
Syed Mahmud Hossain
First appointed as deputy attorney general by the then Awami League government in December 1999, Syed Mahmud Hossain was appointed as additional judge of the High Court division on 22 February 2001, according to the SC website.
Syed Mahmud was promoted to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on 23 February 2011.
Obaidul Hassan
Also the former chairman of International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh-2 (ICT,B), Obaidul Hassan was elevated as additional judge of the High Court division on 30 June 2009 and appointed judge of the same division on 06 June 2011.
Muhammed Sadique
Currently serving as the BPSC chairman, Muhammed Sadique was the secretary to the election commission secretariat from October 2010 to February 2014.
On his retirement as the secretary of Bangladesh government after the holding of controversial 5 January election, Sadique was appointed a member of the BPSC and then promoted to position of the BPSC chairman on 2 May 2016.
Shireen Akhter
Shireen Akhter joined the university in 1996 and since then she was involved with pro-Awami-League teachers yellow panel, said Prothom Alo’s Chittagong University correspondent.
She was elected member of the executive committee of the Chittagong University Teachers’ Association from the yellow panel.
Shireen Akhter's biodata which remains posted on the website of the Chittagong University reads she is a member of Cox’s Bazar Mahila Awami League, the woman front of the ruling AL.
According to her biodata Shireen Akhter’s late father Afsar Kamal Chowdhury was the founding president of Cox’s Bazar district Awami League.
“He [Afsar Kamal Chowdhury] was a close associate of Bangbandhu. He throughout his life was active to uphold the spirit of Bangabandhu in Ramu of Cox’s Bazar,” read the biodata.
About her inclusion in the committee while talking to the Prothom Alo, Shireen Akhter hoped that she will be able to discharge her duty fairly. “I consider this a beautiful and sacred duty.”
Masud Ahmed
Before his appointment as the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh on 8 April 2013, Masud Ahmed served as Deputy Accountant General and Chief Accounts Officer in Local Government & Rural Development Division; and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Apart from his professional life, he has written more than one hundred short stories and six novels so far, according to his biodata posted in the CAG office’s website.
“One of his novels, 'Choitropaban O Digontorekha' has got critical acclamation for occupying a significant niche in the creative writings on Bangladesh's Liberation War.”
Syed Manzoorul Islam
Syed Manzoorul Islam is a professor of English at the University of Dhaka, and the Co-ordinator of Department of English and Humanities, BRAC University. He is an award winning fiction writer and an art critic who has curated Bangladesh art exhibitions in UK, India and Iran.
Widely known as a secular intellectual, he also writes regular column named Khola Hawa in Bengali daily Prothom Alo on a wide range of issues including political, social and educational ones.