The High Court yesterday issued two separate rules asking the government to explain in three weeks why Mahmudur Rahman Manna should not be granted bail in two cases.
In response to separate bail petitions filed by Manna, the HC bench comprising Justice Salma Masud Chowdhury and Justice Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo came up with the rules.
The two cases were filed with Gulshan Police Station on February 24 and March 5 last year on charges of provoking the army and sedition, respectively.
The sedition case was filed against him for his alleged telephone conversation with Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Sadek Hossain Khoka on February 22, in 2015.
And the other was relating to his another conversation with an unidentified expatriate person in a bid to thwart the government by creating division in the army.
Manna, also former Dhaka University Central Students Union vice-president, was detained on February 24 in 2015 and implicated in two sedition cases.
Before he was picked by the government agencies on February 24, Manna had campaigned for a free and fair election, and fiercely criticised the January 5 polls, which was boycotted by the major opposition parties.