The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday cleared the way for releasing Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and standing committee member Mirza Abbas as the SC upheld their bails granted earlier by the High Court on January 4.

A four-judge bench chaired by chief justice Hasan Foez Siddique disposed of a government’s petition seeking a stay on their bails.

The Appellate Division also revoked the Chamber judge’s order that barred lawyers for Fakhrul and Abbas from submitting the bail documents to the Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate’s court to enable their release.

The Appellate Division also asked the High Court division to dispose of the rule issued by the High Court on January 4, asking the government to explain in four weeks why Fakhrul and Abbas should not be granted bail.

The two BNP leaders have remained in jail since December 9, 2022, a day before the party’s mass rally on December 10, 2022.

The government in the appeal opposed the bail of the two opposition leaders, stating that the High Court committed wrong in granting them bail as their bail prayers were kept pending for hearing by the Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge on January 26.

The bench of Justice Md Salim and Justice Md Riaz Uddin Khan on Wednesday granted six-month bail to Mirza Fakhrul, 74, and Abbas, 71, on humanitarian grounds as they had been suffering from various old-age complications.

On December 9, Detective Branch picked up Fakhrul and Abbas from their homes in separate raids in the capital.

Later, they were shown arrested in a case over the clash between the police and the party activists in the capital’s Nayapaltan on December 7, 2022 ahead of the party’s mass rally scheduled for December 10, 2022.

Fakhrul and Abbas were implicated in the case filed by the police against 476 leaders and activists of the party. Over 200 leaders of the party were arrested in the CASE.