DHAKA: The High Court (HC) Wednesday upheld a government decision not to regularize the job of formal additional justice ABM Altaf Hossain as a judge at the HC.

A HC vacation bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Muhammad Ullah handed down the order after rejecting writ petition filed by Altaf challenging the legality of the government decision.

Additional attorney general Murad Reza moved the hearing for the state while M I Faruki and Rokom Uddin Mahmud for the defendant.

The HC also rejected another writ petition filled by thed Supreme Court (SC) Lawyer Idrisur Rahman seeking directives to appoint Altaf as the regular judge.

On June 14, 2012, government appointed six judges, including ABM Altaf Hossain, as the additional judges of the HC Division, for two years.

Later, the President appointed five of them, excluding Altaf, as regular judge at the HC on June 9 this year. The government did mention no reason for the exclusion.

Later, Altaf filed a writ petition with the High Court on August 13 seeking directives upon the government to regularize him as a judge of the higher court as per the recommendation of the Chief Justice.

In the mean time, SC lawyer Idrisur also filed a separate writ petition on July 23 this year seeking HC order to appoint Altaf as the regular judge.

BDST: 1546 HRS, SEP 24, 2014