Md Rezaul Hasan

Md. Rezaul Hasan (born 17 December 1962), also known as M R Hasan, is a judge of the High Court Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court.

Education

Hasan received his bachelor and Masters degrees in law from the University of Dhaka. His father was a lawyer.

Career

Hasan became a lawyer in the District Court in 1985 and in the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in 1989. He joined the Appellate Division in 2004, was appointed as an additional judge of the High Court Division in 2009, and was made a permanent High Court judge in 2011. Early in his career, he was briefly a lecturer in the University of Chittagong's Faculty of Law and in 2003 was short-term consultant at the World Bank's offices in Dhaka.

Hasan contributed an essay to the treatise ''Investment Across the Borders'' published by the International Monetary Fund in 2010. His book ''M. R. Hasan's Index of Bangladesh Laws'' has been widely accepted by the legal community in Bangladesh and copies of it are preserved in the libraries of the United States Supreme Court, United States Congress, Harvard Law School, Cornell University, Yale University, Columbia University Law School, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago. He was a keynote speaker in a seminar on commercial law jointly organised by Standard Chartered Bangladesh and the United Nations Development Programme in Dhaka in July 2018. In his talk, he advocated to reduce the bank rate to below 10%. In 2014, he removed eight members from the board of directors of Pubali Bank, as they did not own the minimum required shares of the bank.

In 2014, after a judgment from Hasan, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission changed its Listing Registrations to require listed companies to hold an annual general meeting in the cities of their registered offices, a move intended to increase transparency in the capital markets. The Ministry of Education circulated information about a judgment by Hasan directing that no teachers should be kept under suspension for more than two months. In 2016, Hasan and Justice Kashefa Hussain ordered Chittagong Development Authority, Chattogram City Corporation, and the Department of Environment to protect Munshi Pukur, a 100-year-old pond in Chittagong. They then ordered the removal of 2,181 illegal structures from the banks of Karnaphuli River. One of his judgments appears in the 2017 ''Leading Cases of India Pakistan and Bangladesh''.

On 7 June 2013, Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain warned Hasan and cautioned him to be more careful in the future as not to damage the image of the judiciary. Hasan was travelling in a two car entourage when his vehicles was stopped at Bangabandhu bridge for the bridge toll by Asaduzzaman, supervisor of the toll plaza at the bridge after Hasan initially refused to pay. Hasan then pain the toll and filed a contempt of court complaint with Bangabandhu Bridge Police Station who then arrested Asaduzzaman. Supervisor Asaduzzaman was sent to Sirajganj District jail and secured bail from Sirajganj District court.

In an interview with ''Sangbad Chitra'' published in August 1992, Hasan opined that the Indemnity Ordinance of 1975 was beyond the constitutional powers of Parliament. He also asserted that the murderers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family should be brought to justice. His 2020 article ''The Liberation War 1971: Its Legitimacy Under the International Law'', which appeared in a special edition of the RAB, was written as a tribute to Rahman and provided insight into the Bangladesh Liberation War. In 2021, he was a keynote speaker at a Dhaka WASA webinar and presented "Development Plans of Bangabandhu and the Present Day Realities" to honour of what would have been Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's 100th birthday.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hasan, Md. Rezaul
Living people
1962 births
University of Dhaka alumni
20th-century Bangladeshi lawyers
Supreme Court of Bangladesh justices
21st-century Bangladeshi judges