HC verdict any day

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

The bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Justice Ashish Ranjan Das may deliver the verdict anytime as hearing concluded yesterday.

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 it to remove the dumped soil, but the company 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 for establishing its Sonargaon Resort City and to remove the soil it has already dumped in the site.

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 hearing on the rule yesterday, 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 of land for establishing hotel and resort, though Beza has no right to do so.

Lawyers for Unique Properties Development Ltd and its sister concerns told that the company had halted the earth filling at the area following the HC's 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. 

The sand filling was reportedly started by the real estate developer in 2009 for building a resort city. It was stopped for two years following a court injunction. But later it resumed the filling for the private Sonargaon Economic Zone with a different company – Unique Hotel and Resort Ltd of the same business conglomerate.

In September last year, the company made preparations to resume earth filling for the private economic zone. Bela on October 2 last year served a legal notice on the company and the DoE, bringing contempt charges against them.