A rights organisation on Sunday petitioned to the High Court seeking an order on 11 government officials, including five secretaries, to explain why contempt of the court charges should not be drawn against them for violating the court directives to protect four rivers flowing around the city.
In the contempt petition, the Human Rights and Peach for Bangladesh said that secretaries to the ministries of planning, finance, shipping, communications and water resources, directors generals of the departments of land record and survey, and environment, chairman of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, and deputy commissioners of Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur had violated the court's June 25, 2009 verdict that asked them to take steps to save the rivers Buriganga, Balu, Turag and Shitalakhya.
After hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by the organisation, the court, in its directive asked the government officials to take steps to remove all structures, piles of garbage and deposits of sand and soil from the rivers, set up boundary pillars and construct
walkways on the banks of the rivers and dredge those by November 2010.
Following a government petition, the High Court, on October 30, 2010, extended the deadline to execute the order to May 30, 2011 but the authorities failed to take any step to implement it.
The organisation, however, did not accuse the environment and forest secretary of not executing the order as the ministry in reply to its legal notice, said that it had already declared the rivers ecologically critical area in accordance with the directive, and that steps for tree plantation would be taken after construction of walkways or pavements.
But the other authorities did not reply to the legal notice issued by the organisation on July 2 to implement the directives in seven days.
Source : New Age
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