Tenants in the capital are unaware of the existence of rent controllers assigned to deal with arbitrary increase in house rents and the eviction of tenants by landlords at their whims.
Tenants have for long been suffering as, on one hand, they do not know of the rent controllers and their offices and, on the other hand, authorities do not question the landlords about their arbitrarily increasing house rents very often.
Mahbub Khan, who lives in a rented house at Uttara, said that he had heard of such an official for the first time. ‘If the government wants it work, it can make tenants aware through advertisements.’
There are nine assistant district judges under the Dhaka district court who are also designated as rent controllers for the district, court sources said.
Mere appointment of rent controllers will not help the tenants to get justice from until the functions of rent controllers are made public, lawyers and tenants said.
According to an annual report of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, the house rent increased on an average by 16 per cent in 2011. In the same period, inflation rose by less than 11 per cent, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The CAB president, Quazi Faruque, said that the two reports clearly showed the ineffectiveness of the mere appointment of rent controllers and the House Rent Control Act 1991.
‘Although the government appointed rent controllers,
neither the tenants nor the landlords know where and how they could be reached,’ Faruque said.
He also said that the act had not specifically designated any ministry or implementing authority. He suggested that there should be an authority effectively implementing the law.
The city corporations of Dhaka can play a role in the implementation of the law as the corporation collects revenue from the landlords, he told New Age.
A Dhaka North City Corporation official told New Age that the the corporation only prepares and updates house rent chart which only decides how much tax a landlord should pay but the corporation does not help tenants to stop landlords arbitrarily increasing the house rent.
The corporation’s chief revenue officer Moniruzzaman told New Age that rent controllers are supposed to be appointed by the the office of Dhaka’s deputy commissioner.
Dhaka’s deputy commissioner Mohibul Haque told New Age that the government had already appointed some assistant judges under the district judge court rent controllers. He said that the appointment was not done by the deputy commissioner’s office.
According to Section 3(1) of the House Rent Control Act, the government may, by notification in the official gazette, appoint any person as a controller for any area to exercise the powers and discharge the duties conferred and imposed upon a controller by or under the act.
Lawyer Manzill Murshid, who recently moved a writ petition on behalf of the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh to know of the details of the rent controllers, referred to Section 3(1) of the act and said that as the government could appoint any person a rent controller, the government should think of appointing seniors of respective areas who could be professionals, lawyers or social activists acceptable to all of the areas.
The appointment of assistant district judges as rent controllers would not help tenants because the delay in the disposal of cases is still a big factor in Bangladesh, Manzil said.
The High Court on July 26 asked secretaries to the Prime Minister’s Office, the cabinet division, the law ministry and Jatiya Sangsad and mayors of Dhaka city corporations to submit the details about the house rent controllers by August 7.
-With New Age input
