River grabbing: Full text of HC verdict with 17 directives released

The High Court today released the full text of a judgement issuing 17 directives to save the country’s rivers and waterbodies from pollution and encroachers.

In the verdict, the court directed the Election Commission to disqualify the persons responsible for grabbing and polluting river lands from contesting any polls.

The EC has been asked to submit a list of the persons before the court in the next six months.

The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal delivered the verdict on February 3 this year following a writ petition filed by Human Rights for Piece for Bangladesh.

In its petition, the organisation cited a report published in The Daily Star on November 6, 2016, headlined “Time to Declare Turag Dead”.

NO POLLS, NO LOANS

The HC, in its February 3 verdict, said “If any person, whose name is included in the list of river land grabbing, he or she will be disqualified from contesting the union parishad, upazila, pourasava, city corporation and Jatiya Sangsad elections.” It asked the EC to take steps in this regard.

The Bangladesh Bank have been ordered to make sure no river grabbers get bank loans.

HOLD AWARENESS BUILDING CLASSES, MEETINGS

The bench asked the education ministry to take steps for holding an hour-long class every two months at all public and private academic institutions, including school, madrasa, college and university, to build awareness among students about the importance of rivers.

The industries ministry has been ordered to take measures for arranging an hour-long meeting every two months with factory workers across the country, also to create awareness.