The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday upheld the bail orders of Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and standing committee member Mirza Abbas, granted by the High Court on January 4, paving the way for their release.

The two, now retained in Dhaka Central Jail, could not be released immediately as the Appellate Division did not sign the order, which upheld the bail of the two opposition leaders.

An officer of the Appellate Division told New Age at 5:00pm on Sunday that the draft order was kept on the table of the chief justice after he left the office at 2:30pm.

Lawyer Zainul Abedin told New Age that he was expecting the release of the two leaders from jail today after completing the legal procedures to get the bail document to the jail through the lower court.

A four-judge bench chaired by chief justice Hasan Foez Siddique disposed of a government’s petition filed on January 5 seeking a stay on the bails of Fakhrul and Abbas.

The Appellate Division also revoked the chamber judge’s order that barred the lawyers of Fakhrul and  Abbas from submitting the bail documents to the Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate’s court to enable their release.

The Appellate Division also asked the High Court division to dispose of within 30 days the rule the latter issued on January 4, asking the government to explain in four weeks why Fakhrul and Abbas should not be granted bail.

The two BNP leaders have remained in jail since December 9, 2022.

The government, in its appeal, opposed the bail of the two opposition leaders, stating that the High Court committed wrong in granting them bail as their bail prayers were kept pending for hearing by the Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge on January 26.

On January 4, the bench of Justice Md Salim and Justice Md Riaz Uddin Khan granted six-month bail to Mirza Fakhrul, 74, and Abbas, 71, on humanitarian grounds as they had been suffering from various old-age complications.

Earlier, the lower court denied bail to Fakhrul and Abbas on four occasions.

On December 9, Detective Branch picked up Fakhrul and Abbas from their homes in separate raids in the capital.

Later, they were shown arrested in a case over a clash between police and party activists in the capital’s Nayapaltan on December 7, 2022 ahead of the party’s mass rally scheduled for December 10, 2022.

Fakhrul and Abbas were implicated in the case filed by the police against 476 leaders and activists of the party.