The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court today fixed Sunday (February 15) for holding hearing on a leave-to-appeal petition challenging the High Court verdict that upheld the government’s move to lease out the New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT) at Chattogram Port to UAE firm DP World.

A bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury deferred the hearing on the petition to Sunday of its own as “a long hearing on the matter might be needed”, petitioner's counsel Md Anwar Hossen told The Daily Star.

Senior lawyers Ahsanul Karim, Syed Mamun Mahbub and Ehsan A Siddiq and lawyer Anwar Hossain appeared for Bangladesh Jubo Arthanitibid Forum, a philanthropic organisation, which recently submitted the leave to appeal petition to the Appellate Division challenging the HC verdict, while Acting Attorney General Md Arshadur Rouf and Additional Attorney General Aneek R Haque represented the state.

In the petition, the organisation sought an order to maintain the status quo regarding the process of awarding the contract for the NCT to DP World.

Citing the petition, Barrister Anwar earlier said that the intended execution of the impugned contract concerning the NCT, barely a week prior to the said election, amounts to an act of manifest executive high-handedness, arbitrariness, and malafide exercise of power on the part of the respondents (government).

If the court is not pleased to pass an order of status quo in respect of awarding the contract for the NCT in view of the changed and compelling circumstances, the petitioners will suffer irreparable loss and injury, and the rights and interests of the public at large will be materially prejudiced, he added.

On January 29, Justice Md Rezaul Haque, a chamber judge of the Appellate Division, passed “no order” on a petition filed by the Bangladesh Jubo Arthanitibid Forum against the HC verdict, seeking an order to maintain the status quo in the entire lease out process.