Publish list of pollutants: HC

The High Court on Monday ordered to publish the list of the organisations or persons responsible for polluting the environment within one week through a press release and on the website of the Department of Environment (DoE), reports UNB. 

An HC bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Justice Mohi Uddin Shamim passed the order and asked the authorities concerned to submit a progress report on it within two weeks after implementing the court order.

It also issued a rule asking the government to explain why the ineffectiveness of the responsible persons in publishing the names of people involved in pollution should not be declared illegal.

The HC issued another rule asking why directives should not be given to publishing the names of the responsible persons involved in polluting the environment.

Secretaries to the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry, Information Ministry, Directorate General of the Director General of the Department of Environment (DOE) and four others were made respondent to the rules which is returnable in four weeks.

Advocate Manzill Murshid stood for the petitioner.

Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh filed a writ petition following a report published in different media that the authorities concerned will refrain from making the names of the organisations and persons involved in pollution in public.

The DoE must publish the names of those people or organisations involved in polluting the environment, said Manzill.

But the DoE has taken their stance on behalf of those involved in the pollution which is illegal, he said.