SC to hear state plea against HC ruling on condemned cells on 28 Oct

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) has fixed 28 October for hearing a state plea challenging a High Court judgment that barred keeping death row convicts in solitary confinement until their sentences are finalised.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury, passed the order following a plea filed by Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir, counsel for the petitioners, in this connection.

The High Court on 13 May last year delivered the judgment, prohibiting the confinement of people convicted and sentenced to death in condemned cells until their death sentences are finalised through the disposal of all appeals.

The writ petition was filed in 2021 on behalf of three death row convicts who were kept in condemned cells in Chattogram, Sylhet and Cumilla jails.

The High Court subsequently directed the authorities concerned to submit a written report on the facilities provided to 1,987 death row convicts in various jails across the country and issued a rule on 5 April 2022.

Later, the High Court made the rule absolute in its final judgment.

Quoting the High Court verdict, Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir earlier said convicts cannot be termed death row prisoners and kept in condemned cells until their sentences are finalised.

"A death row convict can only be kept in solitary confinement when all their appeals, including mercy petitions, are disposed of and all official formalities are completed," he added.

The state later filed a petition seeking a stay on the High Court judgment.

The Chamber Judge Court of the Appellate Division subsequently stayed the verdict, and the matter has now come before the regular bench of the apex court for hearing.