Shut down, then report by Apr 9
The Supreme Court yesterday asked the tanners to shut down their factories in the city's Hazaribagh and inform it on April 9 about the progress of the closure process.
“Close down the tanneries and then we [judges] would look at the petitions,” the Appellate Division of the SC told tanners' lawyers Syed Amirul Islam and Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh while hearing two petitions.
A three-member apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, adjourned the hearing of the petitions till April 9.
The petitions were filed with the SC seeking stay on a High Court order that asked 154 tanners to pay Tk 30.85 crore into government coffers. The petitioners also sought review of the HC order that directed each tannery owner to pay Tk 10,000 per day as compensation for damaging and polluting the environment.
Yesterday, tanners' counsels told the SC that their clients were in a financial crisis as their units were facing closure following snapping of their gas and power connections.
The HC on March 2 directed 154 tannery owners to pay Tk 30.85 crore to the government in two weeks and warned that they would face serious consequences unless they paid the money.
The HC passed the order following a contempt petition moved by advocate Manzill Murshid on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.
Earlier in July last year, the Appellate Division ruled that every tannery must pay Tk 10,000 per day for damaging and polluting the environment and also ordered the owners to relocate their factories to the Tannery Industrial Estate in Savar.
The tanners in the same year filed a petition with the SC seeking review of its order, tanners' counsel Mehedi Hasan Chowdhury told The Daily Star.
Following another petition filed by Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, the HC on March 6 this year directed the director general of the Department of Environment to immediately shut the tanneries and snap their utility service connections, including gas, power and water, as they were damaging the environment violating its earlier directives.
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