Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Muhammad Nurul Amin’s petition to the Appellate Division to block BNP candidate Sarwar Alamgir, who won the Chattogram-2 seat in the 13th national parliamentary election, from taking his seat in parliament has failed.

Attorney General Ruhul Quddus Kazal said on Wednesday that the Supreme Court removed the appeal from this agenda, meaning that there is no obstacle to Sarwar performing his duties as a member of parliament.

Nurul Amin, who contested in the same constituency, filed the petition with the Appellate Division on Jul 12 seeking a stay on the High Court verdict declaring Sarwar Alamgir's candidacy valid.

A four-member appeal bench headed by Chief Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury ordered the appeal to be removed from the agenda.

The other three members of the bench are Justice Md Rezaul Haque, Justice SM Emdadul Hoque and Justice Farah Mahbub.

Lawyers Mohammad Shishir Manir and Azim Uddin Patwary were present at the hearing on behalf of Nurul Amin.

Meanwhile, lawyers Ahsanul Karim and AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon were in attendance on behalf of Sarwar.

After the order, Attorney General Kazal told reporters that the Jamaat candidate had sought an interim order so that Sarwar could not work as an MP.

“But, in the meantime, the High Court Division has published its full judgment. Since the full judgment has been published, there is no need for the application seeking an interim order. Therefore, the court has removed the case from the list today.”

The attorney general said that Nurul can file a regular appeal if he wants to after seeing the full judgment of the High Court.

"But in the context of this case, I can say that the duties that Sarwar Alamgir has taken on as an MP, his taking of the oath and joining of parliament, will continue. There will be no obstacle in fulfilling his duties."

In response to media questions about the effectiveness of the High Court's verdict, he said: "As long as no one appeals against this High Court verdict and the Supreme Court does not issue a stay order after hearing the appeal, the High Court's verdict will definitely remain effective."

Nurul Amin's lawyer Patwary said that they will appeal once they receive a certified copy of the High Court verdict.

Ahead of the Feb 12 election, the returning officer had declared Sarwar's nomination valid during the scrutiny of nomination papers.

Jamaat candidate Nurul appealed to the Election Commission (EC), alleging that the BNP leader was a loan defaulter.

Following a hearing, the EC accepted the appeal on Jan 18 and cancelled Sarwar's nomination.

Challenging the decision, Sarwar filed a writ petition with the High Court on Jan 19.

After a preliminary hearing, the High Court stayed the EC's decision.

The Jamaat-backed candidate then appealed to the Appellate Division against the High Court's order.

After a hearing on Feb 3, the Appellate Division granted leave to appeal and ruled that Sarwar could contest the February election.

It, however, directed that the result for the constituency must not be published until the case was finally disposed of.

In the election, Sarwar won with 138,545 votes, while his nearest rival, Nurul, received 62,160 votes.

But in line with the Supreme Court's directive, the EC withheld publication of the official gazette, preventing Sarwar from taking the oath of office.

Sarwar later applied to the Appellate Division seeking permission for the election result to be published and for him to take the oath as a member of parliament.

On Jun 16, the Appellate Division sent the case back to the High Court, directing it to dispose of the rule within two weeks.

After the final hearing, the High Court delivered its judgment on Jul 9, declaring the EC's decision to cancel Sarwar's nomination illegal.

On the day the judgment was delivered, Nurul's lawyer Shishir Manir said they would appeal after receiving the full written copy of the verdict.

However, later that same day, the EC Secretariat published the official gazette declaring Sarwar the winner, and he took the oath as a member of parliament that evening.

Before the full text of the judgment had been released, Shishir sent a legal notice to the EC challenging the legality of both the gazette notification and the oath-taking ceremony.

He said: "No copy of the High Court judgment had been issued. The judgment had not been written or signed, and no court documents had been communicated to the Election Commission. Suddenly, we heard that it was going to publish the gazette."

Against this backdrop, Nurul filed a fresh application with the chamber court of the Appellate Division on Jul 12, seeking a stay on the operation of the High Court judgment and an order barring Sarwar from attending parliamentary sittings.