PIL verdicts largely ignored

Many Supreme Court directives issued on matters of public importance, including river protection, road safety, consumer rights and medical treatment, arbitrary arrest, detention and remand, have not been carried out.

Asked to comment, several rights lawyers blamed politically powerful persons or some government institutions for the non-compliance with the apex court directives in public interest litigation.

The executive, the lawyers said, is bound to carry out the Supreme Court directives according to Article 111 of the constitution.  

Attorney general AM Amin Uddin told New Age that he was only aware of the Appellate Division’s guidelines on arrest and remand but the government, he added, filed a petition to review the guidelines.

The review petition is pending with the Appellate Division, he said. 

Rights lawyer Manzill Murshid on Wednesday told New Age that the rivers around Dhaka city could not be freed from grabbers, in compliance with the court directives, as politically influential persons like MPs created obstacles.

He said that the pollution of the Buriganga River water could not be prevented due to dumping of waste into it through the pipelines of the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority.

And the illegal structures on and inside the Kurnaphuli River bank in Chattogram built by the Chattogram Port Authority and others were not removed in violation of the directives, he added.

The High Court Division on August 16, 2016 directed the CPA chairman to remove 2,181 structures illegally built on and inside the banks of the river and submit a compliance report in 30 days.

The bench issued the directive after hearing an application filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, represented by Manzill Murshid.

Chattogram Port Authority secretary Mohammad Omar Faruk on Saturday said that they continued their drive to evict the illegal establishments to comply with the court directive.

‘But influential people encroach the lands again days after the evictions,’ Omar Faruk said, adding, ‘We are now erecting a boundary wall and fencing the river’s territory to prevent encroachment.’

Asked to comment on the presence of the CPA’s own illegal structures on the river bank, Omar Faruk said, ‘We will remove the structures, if any.’

The High Court after hearing an HRPB writ petition issued a series of directives on June 1, 2011 to prevent the dumping of waste into the rivers around Dhaka in six months.

The directives included sealing off of the sewerage lines and the industries dumping wastes into rivers, and conducting awareness programmes so that none would dump waste into the rivers or on river banks.

The HC also sought progress reports every six months from the BIWTA, the DWASA, the deputy commissioner of Dhaka and the Department of Environment.  

Asked to comment on the progress of implementing the HC directive to seal off the DWASA sewerage lines that dump waste into the Dhaka rivers, DWASA managing director Taqsem A Khan said on Saturday, ‘Five sewerage treatment plants will be constructed around the city by 2030 in line with its Master Plan to keep the city’s sewerage system under a network.’

Taqsem said that the proposed sewerage treatment plants would be located at Rayerbazar, Mirpur, Uttara, Daserkandi at Aftabnagar and Pagla in Narayanganj.

He said that 50 per cent construction was completed at the Daserkandi plant. 

He further said that the DWASA removed pipelines of 57 businesses at Shyampur in Dhaka to comply with the court directive.

Earlier, on June 25, 2009, the High Court in a verdict issued nine directives to save the rivers Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Sitalakhya passing by the capital.

The court also asked the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority and other relevant authorities to demolish all illegal structures and remove the dirt dumped into the rivers.

In the directive, the HC asked the government to demarcate the four rivers in accordance with the cadastral survey in four months and to report on the matter to the court by December 15, 2009.

The court ordered on-site demarcation of the river boundaries by erecting pillars, demolishing all illegal structures and removing the dumped dirt from inside the boundaries without any discrimination by May 31, 2010.

The court also ordered the construction of boundary walls and walkways along the river and the planting of trees in rows by May 31, 2011.

It asked the Dhaka City Corporation, the municipalities concerned and the Public Works Department to plant trees along the river under their respective jurisdictions.

The officials concerned will be individually responsible if the works are not completed on time, said the court in the directive.

The court also asked the environment and forest ministry to declare the four river areas as ecologically critical areas under Section 5 of the Environment Conservation Act 1995.

Manzill said that most of the directives for the protection of the rivers were not implemented in 11 years since the verdict was issued.  

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan on Thursday said that some Appellate Division judgements, including on stopping hill cutting, banning the use of throwaway plastic containers by hotels, motels, and restaurants in the coastal belt, and stopping activities of several illegal housing project, were yet to be implemented.

Syeda Rizwana said that the relocation of the tannery industry from Hazaribagh to Savar after utility services to 153 businesses were snapped on April 9, 2017 was a major success in the implementation of the HC directives issued on July 15, 2001 after the hearing of a writ petition filed by BELA.

She said that although the court directed the government to relocate the tannery units by February 28, 2010 but it took 16 years to carry out the directives as a contempt of court case was filed in this regard.

On January 6 the High Court directed the government to ban in one year the use of throwaway plastic containers by hotels, motels and restaurants in the coastal belt.

The High Court also directed the government to strictly enforce the ban imposed by the environment and forest ministry on April 8, 2002 on the marketing and use of polythene and plastic bags.

The court asked the government to regularly monitor the situation and shut down factories manufacturing poly bags and plastic containers across the country and to seize their machinery.

That directive was also issued after the hearing of a writ petition filed by BELA.   

Rizwana said that neither the government nor the authority of Madhumati Model Town in Aminbazar removed the illegal structures built on wetlands following an Appellate Division judgement pronounced on April 25, 2019.

The housing project authority also did not refund double the money to the buyers of the plots inside the project as per the judgement, she added.

A seven-member AD bench, led by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, upheld the earlier verdict and dismissed all the review petitions filed by Metro Makers and Development Ltd and 45 buyers of plots and their association.

Metro Makers was asked to restore the wetlands to their original condition within six months.

Another suo motu directive issued by the High Court on March 27, 2019 to put unregistered and unfit vehicles off the road to reduce road accidents is yet to be implemented.

The High Court asked the government to form taskforces, headed by the deputy commissioners, for the districts in this regard and asked the refuelling stations not to sell fuel to unfit vehicles.

But none of the directives was carried out yet.

Rights lawyer Shahdeen Malik said that there were 10 guidelines issued for the law enforcement agencies and nine others for the judicial magistrates on arrest and detention in police or judicial custody are not being followed either because of government indifference.

He said that the Supreme Court on several occasions expressed annoyance over the non-compliance with the apex court directives issued by the Appellate Division in 2016 to stop arbitrary arrests, detention and torture in custody.

Asked to comment on the non-compliance with the directives, law minister Anisul Huq on Saturday told New Age that the law enforcement agencies were empowered to arrest anyone as a suspect if they committed misdeeds regardless of whether a case was filed or not.

‘Are there any country in the world where law enforcement agencies can’t detain crime suspects?’ the minister asked.

 According to the 10 directives, law enforcement agency members are to show their identity cards on demand during the arrest, maintain a diary stating the date and time of the arrest with the signature of the arrested, inform the relatives of the arrested within 12 hours, allow the arrested to consult lawyers of their own choice, record the case for detention of the arrested, produce the arrested before a magistrate within 24 hours and the case diary to the magistrate court with the prayer to detain the arrested in law enforcement agency custody or in judicial custody and show the individual arrested in a pending case.

The magistrates are required to examine the case diary for detaining an arrested individual in judicial or law enforcement agency custody or showing the individual arrested in a pending case and free the arrested individual in case of the absence of the case diary, according to the nine other Appellate Division guidelines.

The magistrates shall not allow the court or any law enforcement agency to detain an arrested individual for more than 15 days pending the investigation of the case.

Additionally, if the magistrate  has  a reason  to  believe  that any  member  of  a law  enforcement agency or any officer who has legal authority to keep a person in confinement has acted contrary to the law, the magistrate will take action against  the officer, said a guideline.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net