Dhaka: The Bangladeshi government has dissolved the Supreme Court Secretariat, removed 15 lower court judges assigned to run it, and attached them to the law ministry.

The ministry issued a gazette notification giving retrospective effect to their removal and transfer from April 10, meaning the orders took effect on that date. Of them, 10 are district and sessions judges; the remaining five hold posts as additional district and sessions, joint district and senior assistant judges.

After the interim government issued the Supreme Court Secretariat Ordinance, 2025, on November 30 last year, the then chief justice Syed Refaat Ahmed inaugurated the Supreme Court Secretariat in early December, with the goal of bringing the judiciary under the Supreme Court and making it fully independent.

Later, several officials and staff members, including the 15 lower court judges, were given responsibility for running functions of the Supreme Court Secretariat.

On April 2 this year, a special parliamentary committee, reviewing interim government ordinances, recommended that 20 of them be allowed to lapse or expire, including the Supreme Court Secretariat Ordinance.

On April 3, Law Minister Md Asaduzzaman told media 'the BNP government will further scrutinise ordinances issued by the interim government to ensure judicial independence, correcting them before reintroducing them as bills in parliament. We have not said that we will not approve those ordinances. We are just deferring it for consultation with stakeholders as there are some errors. We will further scrutinise and correct the ordinances and bring those as bills in parliament later on.'