The Appellate Division on Sunday cleared the way for the release of former Narayanganj City Corporation mayor Selina Hayat Ivy by upholding or restoring her bail in all 12 criminal cases filed against her over the incidents linked to the 2024 mass uprising.
The apex court upheld the High Court’s bail orders in five cases and withdrew stay orders on bail in five other cases.
It also directed the High Court Division to hear and dispose of the pending rules on those five cases within six weeks.
Ivy’s lawyer, SM Siddiqur Rahman, told New Age that there was now no legal bar to her release from jail as she remained on bail in all 12 cases.
He said that appeals filed by the government challenging her bail in the remaining two cases were still pending before the chamber judge of the Appellate Division and had not yet been taken up for hearing.
The Appellate Division bench, led by chief justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury, dismissed five separate leave-to-appeal petitions filed by the state against the High Court’s verdict on her bail in the first batch of cases in which Ivy was named as an accused.
In another five cases, where Ivy was later shown arrested although she was not initially named in the first information reports, the apex court vacated earlier stay orders on her interim bail and asked the High Court to dispose of the related rules within six weeks.
Her lawyer said that the former mayor, a prominent leader of the Narayanganj unit of the Awami League, had been in jail for nearly a year despite obtaining bail in multiple cases.
He described the order as politically significant ahead of the local government elections.
According to her lawyer, Ivy was repeatedly shown arrested in seven fresh cases immediately after securing bail in the earlier five cases, effectively preventing her release from prison.
Ivy was arrested at her Narayanganj home on May 9, 2025.
Since then, she was shown arrested in a series of murder, attempted murder and violence-related cases linked to the mass uprising that ousted the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League regime on August 5, 2024.
The lawyer said that although nearly a year has passed since her arrest, investigations into most of the cases have yet to be completed, prompting questions among legal observers over the prolonged prosecution process.
Initially, Ivy was shown arrested in three murder and two attempted murder cases.
After lower courts rejected her bail petitions, she moved the High Court, which granted her bail on November 9, 2025.
The state later challenged those orders before the Appellate Division, and the chamber judge temporarily stayed the bail before referring the matters to the regular bench.
Later, Ivy was shown arrested in another five cases, including four murder cases filed with Fatullah Police Station and a case over alleged assault and obstruction of government duties filed with Narayanganj Sadar Police Station.
On February 26, the High Court granted her six months’ interim bail in those cases and issued rules. The chamber court later stayed the bail orders on March 5 following state appeals.
On Sunday, the Appellate Division vacated those stay orders.
In a separate development, the High Court on April 26 directed the government not to arrest Ivy in cases where she was not named unless there were specific allegations supported by police records.
The court also asked authorities not to show her arrested in any further unnamed cases.
The order came after Ivy filed a writ petition challenging what her lawyers described as a pattern of repeated arrests in new cases.
Lawyers Sara Hossain, Motaher Hossain Sazu, SM Siddiqur Rahman and SM Hridoy Rahman appeared for Ivy, while additional attorney general Arshadur Rouf and deputy attorney general Fatema Akter represented the state.
