The High Court (HC) on Tuesday directed the concerned bodies to shut down all the illegal brick kilns in three districts of Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT), Khagrachari, Bandarban and Rangamati, within seven days.
The district administrators of the three districts, department of environment and other respondents have been asked to comply with the order and to submit a compliance report in the court within two weeks.
The court also asked the deputy commissioners of the districts and the director of the environment department of the Chattogram range to submit a list of the illegal brick kilns to the court within six weeks.
The HC bench of Justice J B M Hassan and Justice Fatema Najib passed the order after hearing a petition filed by a rights organisation, Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) for necessary directives in this regard.
The court also issued a rule upon the respondents to explain in four weeks as to why their inaction in shutting down the illegal brick kilns of Khagrachari, Bandarban and Rangamati should not be directed illegal.
It also wanted to know in the rule as to why the respondents should not be directed to take legal action against the owners of the illegal brick kilns.
Lawyer Manzill Murshid appeared in the court on behalf of the petitioner while, deputy attorney general Tushar Kanti Roy represented the state.
Mr Manzill said, “Many illegal brick kilns are being operated in the three districts of Chattogram Hill Tracts without any license. Soil collected by cutting the hills is being used as raw material in these brick fields. Apart from this forest trees are also being cut down and used as fuel there, according to the published reports in different media.”
Annexing some newspaper cutting the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) filed the writ petition as public interest litigation.
During the hearing the lawyer said, “No brick Kilns cannot run without license according to the Section 4 of the Brick Preparation and Kiln Installation (Control) Act, 2013. If any one runs a kiln without any license, he will be sentenced for two years in jail as per section 14 of the law. Despite the provisions of the law, the administration is not taking any effective action against all the illegal brick kilns in the three districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts.”
The lawyer also said the same law prohibits the use of soil of the hills in the brick kilns. Even then the administration is not taking any action against the persons who are using hills’ soil as raw material for brick kilns.
