Chief Justice to deliver farewell address this afternoon

Chief Justice Dr Syed Refaat Ahmed will deliver his farewell address to senior judicial officials serving in district courts across the country on Sunday afternoon, December 14.

The address will take place at the Supreme Court auditorium around 3:00 pm.

District judges, metropolitan sessions judges, chief judicial magistrates, and chief metropolitan magistrates will be attend here.

According to the Supreme Court administration, the Chief Justice is scheduled to retire on December 27. The administration earlier announced that the farewell address would be delivered during a special session organized for senior members of the lower judiciary.

Dr. Syed Refaat assumed office as the 25th Chief Justice of Bangladesh on August 11, 2024, following the July–August 2024 mass uprising led by students and the public.

A former student of the University of Dhaka, he earned a first-class law degree from Wadham College, University of Oxford, and later completed his master’s degree and PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the United States. He also worked with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as an immigration law expert.

He began his career at the Dhaka District Court in 1984 and enrolled as an advocate of the High Court Division in 1986. He was appointed an additional judge of the High Court in April 2003 and became a permanent judge two years later.

Dr. Syed Refaat Ahmed is the son of eminent lawyer and former attorney general Barrister Ishtiaq Ahmed and Dr. Sufia Ahmed. His father served twice as an adviser to caretaker governments, while his mother was a Language Movement veteran, an Ekushey Padak recipient, and Bangladesh’s first national female professor.

FH/MHK