HC verdict on writ petition today

The High Court will deliver its verdict today on a writ petition that challenged the legality of earth filling in croplands and wetlands in some areas of Sonargaon upazila in Narayanganj.

The bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Justice Ashish Ranjan Das is set to deliver the verdict.

The bench concluded the hearing on the petition on October 19 last year and kept the matter for delivering its verdict any day.

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) submitted the petition in 2014, saying that Unique Properties Development Ltd, a private housing company, had filled up land for establishing its Sonargaon Resort City, a housing project.

The Department of Environment (DoE) in 2012 had fined the company Tk 50 lakh for damaging the agricultural land and wetland.

The DoE also asked the company to remove the dumped soil, but it did not do so. Therefore, farmers of five moujas of Sonargaon upazila cannot grow crops in their land that is allegedly grabbed by the company, it said.

Following the petition, the HC on March 2, 2014 directed Unique Properties Development Ltd, a private housing company, to stop further filling up of land and to remove the dumped soil.

It also issued a rule upon the authorities concerned of the government and the company to explain as to why the earth filling activities should not be declared illegal.

During the hearing on the rule on October 19 last year, Bela's lawyer and its chief executive Advocate Syeda Rizwana Hasan told the HC that Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority (BEZA) had illegally permitted the company to fill up the land for establishing hotel and resort, although BEZA has no right to do so.

Lawyers for Unique Properties Development Ltd and its sister concerns said the company had halted the earth filling in the area following the HC order. 

Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud, Advocate Quamrul Haque Siddique, Advocate Ahsanul Karim, Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, among others, appeared for the company and its sister concerns.

Several hundred acres of croplands have been damaged by sand filling in the upazila since the HC issued an injunction against sand filling in 2014, according to local villagers.

The HC, in response to a public interest litigation in March that year, banned destruction of ecologically-sensitive agricultural land, adjoining wetlands and ecology along the Meghna river in Jainpur, Chaihishya, Char Bhabnathpur, Bhatibanda, Pirojpur and Ratanpur moujas.