The Supreme Court yesterday stayed for four weeks a section of a High Court verdict that ordered the government to transfer Tangail's Sakhipur upazila nirbahi officer and Sakhipur Police Station's officer-in-charge.

The HC on October 18 declared illegal a mobile court verdict that sentenced Sabbir Shikder, a ninth-grader of Protima Bonki Public High School in Sakhipur, to two years' imprisonment for allegedly threatening a local ruling party lawmaker via Facebook.

It also directed the secretaries of public administration and home ministries and the inspector general of police to withdraw UNO Mohammad Rafiqul Islam and OC Mohammad Maksudul Alam from Sakhipur and place them outside Dhaka division “for a fair investigation”.

Yesterday, chamber judge of the Appellate Division of the SC Justice Hasan Foez Siddique passed the stay order following two separate petitions filed by Rafiqul and Maksudul seeking stay on the HC order transferring them.

The chamber judge also asked them to file separate leave to appeal petitions with the SC against the HC verdict in four weeks.

Sabbir was sentenced to two years' in jail by the mobile court led by UNO Rafiqul reportedly under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act for threatening the lawmaker via Facebook.

The Daily Star on September 20 published a report under the headline “Boy jailed for FB comment about MP”.

Quoting the UNO and the OC, the report said UNO Rafiqul, also an executive magistrate, passed the order a day after police detained the boy following the filing of a general diary by Anupam, lawmaker of Tangail-8 (Basail-Sakhipur) constituency.

Following the report, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Ashish Ranjan Das on September 20 issued a suo moto rule and asked the UNO and the OC to appear before it on September 27 and explain why a schoolboy was sentenced to two years' in jail under the ICT act.

Delivering verdict on the suo moto rule, the HC bench on October 18 declared the mobile court verdict against Sabbir illegal.

The HC acquitted Sabbir from the case and directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Tangail to launch a judicial enquiry based on Sabbir's statement before it on September 27.

In his statement, Sabbir alleged that MP Anupam, UNO Rafiqul and OC Maksudul had tortured him.