Bangladesh Supreme Court restores non-partisan caretaker govt system for election oversight

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Thursday (November 20, 2025) ordered restoration of election time non-partisan caretaker authorities however mentioned the judgment wouldn’t apply to the deliberate common elections to be held in February subsequent 12 months.

A full seven-member of the Supreme Court’s apex Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed issued the order that “restored and revived” the earlier constitutional provision which was annulled throughout deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League authorities.

The apex courtroom verdict, nevertheless, specified a phased implementation of the system, saying it will not apply to the deliberate thirteenth parliamentary polls, conserving the now disbanded Awami League out of the election fray.

The caretaker system was launched in 1996 and two subsequent elections led by two retired chief justices oversaw the broadly accepted polls inside 90 days and transferred energy to the winners.

The third consequent election in 2008 was held underneath a military-backed interim authorities led by a former central financial institution governor in a peaceable method which introduced Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League authorities, which scrapped the system with its overwhelming majority in parliament.

The three subsequent elections held underneath the Awami League regime sparked huge controversy over complaints of manipulations. Hasina’s arch rival and one other former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted elections in 2014 and 2024, demanding the restoration of the caretaker authorities system.

Hasina’s authorities was toppled in a violent student-led protest on August 5, 2024, about seven months after it was re-elected in what the opposition termed as questionable polls in January.

The verdict mentioned the caretaker system, initially inserted by way of the thirteenth constitutional modification of 1996, was “activated and revived,” binning a 2011 apex courtroom judgment through the previous regime saying that verdict was “tainted by a number of cited errors obvious on the face of the document.” According to the decision, Muhammad Yunu’s current interim authorities would oversee the deliberate February election whereas the next one can be held underneath the restored caretaker authorities system.

“Under the Constitution, the caretaker authorities should be fashioned inside 15 days of the dissolution of Parliament. Since Parliament was dissolved greater than a 12 months in the past, the required course of can’t be initiated,” lawyer Sharif Bhuiyan, who had earlier filed a writ looking for restoration of the system, mentioned.