HC can’t give inexecutable directives
The Supreme Court yesterday said the High Court cannot deliver any verdict with inexecutable directives.
A four-member SC bench, led by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, said this referring to an HC verdict regarding river grabbing and pollution.
Following a writ petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, the HC on February 3 last year declared the Turag a "legal person" and a "living entity" and also directed the authorities concerned to free the river from all kinds of encroachments.
The court issued a 17-point directive to save the country's rivers and waterbodies from grabbers and pollution.
It also directed the Election Commission to disqualify the people responsible for river grabbing and pollution from running for public office.
The HC also said the grabbers and polluters would not be able to get bank loans.
It asked the government to recover the land of the Turag under the possession of Nishut Jute Mills Ltd of Hameem Group and Hossain Dyeing and Printing Mills Ltd of Anwar Group.
Challenging the HC verdict, Nishut Jute Mills and Hossain Dyeing filed appeals with the SC.
The top court rejected the appeals on February 4.
However, the SC held an additional hearing yesterday.
During the hearing, the SC asked Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh's lawyer Manzill Murshid whether all the directives issued by the HC were implementable in accordance with the law and whether the HC could order the government to formulate a law.
The lawyer told the SC that the HC had kept his petition as a continued mandamus [which allows people to seek further orders on the matter] and any aggrieved person could approach the HC if there was any hurdle in executing the directives.
The SC said many of the HC directives and findings regarding the Turag were not acceptable and implementable and it would expunge those from the full text of its verdict.
"What will the government do if we do its tasks?" said the bench.
Manzill Murshid told The Daily Star that the government, following the SC verdict, could recover the land in the companies' possession.
Comments