Justice S.K. Sinha was on Monday appointed Chief Justice of Bangladesh to become the first Hindu to hold the highest judicial post in the Muslim-majority country.
Justice S.K. Sinha was on Monday appointed Chief Justice of Bangladesh to become the first Hindu to hold the highest judicial post in the Muslim-majority country.
President Mohammad Abdul Hamid appointed Justice Sinha, the seniormost judge of the apex court, as its Chief Justice who will have a term of a little over three years. He is the first non-Muslim to become the country’s top judge.
64-year-old Sinha will take over on January 17 with the present Chief Justice Muzammel Hos-sain retiring on January 16 on reaching 67, the retirement age for Supreme Court judges in Ban-gladesh, a law ministry statement said.
Justice Sinha is known for a number of landmark judgements, including tho-se on the killing of Bang-abandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the 5th and 13th amendments to the Constitution.
He has also been an appeals judge in the on-going war crimes trials linked to the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan. Justice Sinha obtained LLB and enrolled as an advocate of the district court, Sylhet, in 1974.
He conducted sessions trial cases independently till the end of 1977. He then enrolled as an advocate of the high court and the Appellate Division in 1978 and 1990 respectively. Justice Sinha was appointed as judge of the high court in 1999 and as judge of the Appellate Division in 2009.
