HC hears hurdles

* Court injunction * Ducking of 2001 verdict * Missing demarcation * Clouts of grabbers * Lack of govt coordination
Government drives against encroachment largely fail because encroachers often obtain stay orders and injunctions from the court against eviction drives, high officials of BIWTA, Environment Directorate, and Land Survey Directorate told a High Court bench yesterday.
But the HC said non-implementation of a 2001 verdict on saving rivers has caused the present pitiable situation. It feels the situation is so critical that now it has to play a vital role in recovering the rivers from encroachers.
The anti-encroachment drives have also suffered from other administrative problems and resistance from influential people, officials of the three organisations told the HC bench comprised of justices ABM Khairul Haq and Momtajuddin Ahmed at their court chamber.
They had a two-hour long meeting with the judges in the presence of Additional Attorney General Enayetur Rahim, petitioner of a river encroachment case advocate Manzill Murshid, and chief of Bangladesh Environment Lawyers’ Association (Bela) Rezwana Hasan.
On Wednesday, the HC bench asked these officials to apprise the court of government actions against encroachment and the latest condition of the rivers.
“The government officials and Bela chief pointed out that one of the major hurdles in recovering rivers from encroachers is that there is no clear demarcation of the rivers,” Manzill Murshed told The Daily Star last night.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) Chairman Abdul Mannan Hawladar, Environment Directorate Acting Director General Bellal Hossain, and Land Survey Directorate DG Dr Aslam Alam pointed out that if the deputy commissioners clearly demarcate river boundaries, the anti-encroachment drives will become easy.
When government officials lead anti-encroachment drives, they must have documents to prove that the target land belongs to the state. But this is often not the case as the DCs do not provide the anti-encroachment force with those documents, they said.
Immediately after the meeting, the petitioner’s lawyer at an open court suggested that the HC bench ask the DCs of Dhaka, Gazipur, Munshiganj and Narayanganj to give their views on the matter.
The judges accordingly asked the DCs, chairman of Wasa and chief executive officer of Dhaka City Corporation to meet them at the same court chamber on Monday.
During the hearing on injunctions and stay orders, they told the government officials that the court may issue such injunctions or stay orders on occasions, but the authorities should promptly come back to the court with arguments against such orders. Then the court will surely reconsider the injunctions or stay orders, they said.
The officials said the government departments involved in the anti-encroachment drives also lack coordination, thus frustrating the drives, Additional Attorney General Eneyetur Rahim told The Daily Star.
“Influential people including big industrialists often resist such drives and use their workers to prevent eviction. They put up road blockades and other hurdles so that the drive cannot proceed,” Rahim added, sharing the discussion points of the meeting.
The two judges reminded them that the HC on July 15, 2001 gave a verdict to save the river following a petition of Bela. Unfortunately, the verdict has not been implemented, the judges said, adding that the present pitiable situation is the result of non-implementation of that verdict.
The judges felt that the rivers have so critically shrunk that if effective measures are not taken immediately, the rivers will die within a short time, Rahim said. “That is why the judges felt that the court must now play a vital role to save the rivers,” he said.
The government officials told the judges that if the court takes up serious steps now to save the Buriganga, Shitalakhya, Turag and Balu rivers from encroachers, it will take at least one year to recover the rivers.
On the issue of pollution, they said although government regulations make it mandatory for industries to have their own effluent treatment plants (ETP), many do not operate those plants while others do not even bother to build such plants.
The officials said the tannery industries, which cause the most pollution to the rivers, are scheduled to be relocated to Savar next February, but they expressed doubts that the relocation schedule will be strictly followed.
The environment directorate said it has limited resources and manpower, which is a basic problem in enforcing anti-pollution or eviction drives.

Courtesy of The Daily Star