The stock market investors staged a rowdy demonstration on Wednesday in front of a High Court room and confined the lawyers for around 20 minutes inside it.
Around 200 investors gathered at the HC premises to witness the hearing of writ petitions filed by directors of some listed companies against a SEC rule on mandatory shareholding by company directors.
The investors became angry as the HC bench of Justice Farid Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif at 4:20pm postponed the hearing till Thursday morning for time shortage.
They feared that the delay in hearing would continue to affect trading at stock exchanges as the writ petition issue has been a major concern for the investors for the last few days.
The investors went to the HC premises in the morning and formed a human chain against the directors for filing the petitions and in demand of a HC order against the cases.
Just after the court was adjourned for the day, a section of investors rushed into the court room and started threatening lawyer Rafique-ul Huq by using abusive language as he appeared before the court for 11 directors of Delta Life Insurance.
The court staff pushed the investors out and locked the room where both defense and persecution lawyers including attorney general Mahbubey Alam, M Zahir, Fida M Kamal, Rafiqul Haque, Abdul Matin Khasru, Hasan Arif, Fazle Nur Tapos and Tania Amir were present.
The investors started shouting slogans against Rafique outside the room, accusing him of keeping double standard.
‘In the media he claims to be a sympathiser of the stock market investors but when it comes to reality he takes the side of the directors who caused our misery,’ said one of the agitating investors.
At this point, attorney general Mahbubey Alam, who appeared for SEC, come out of the room and tried to manage the angry investors.
When attorney general’s attempt failed to cool the investors then police entered to the scene and dispersed the investors from the area.
The confined lawyers finally came out the court room 10 minutes after the investors left the spot.
 ‘They seemed very excited. I have never seen such gathering of the common people turning against the lawyers,’ Mahbubey Alam told reporters after the situation was taken care of.
When asked whether the court will take action against investors for contempt of the court, he said, ‘I don’t think so. But what happened today was unfortunate and unexpected.’     
The HC will resume hearing today against the Securities and Exchange Commission rule of mandatory shareholding by listed company directors.