Desk Report
Publish: 11 Oct 2021, 08:01 pm
The High Court || Photo: Collected
The High Court has stayed
the allotment of 700 acres of forest land for the construction of a training
academy for government officials in Cox's Bazar. At the same time, the court
issued a rule asking why the allocation order would not be declared invalid.
The High Court bench of
Justice Mohammad Mojibur Rahman Miah and Justice Mohammad Kamrul Hossain Mollah
passed the order on Monday (October 11) following a writ petition.
Advocate Moniruzzaman Kabir
appeared for the court writ petition. Deputy Attorney General Bipul Bagmar
represented the state.
The four-week cabinet
secretary, environment and forest secretary, land secretary and public
administration secretary have been asked to respond to the rule.
On September 5, a report was
published on a national daily under the headline '700 acres allocated for
forest administration academy'. According to the report, 700 acres of
'protected forest land' have been allotted to build another training academy for
government officials. The area of Jhilangja
forest adjacent to Cox's Bazar-Teknaf Marine Drive is environmentally critical.
The land was allotted by the
Ministry of Lands, despite objections from the Department of Forests and the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Environment, Forests and
Climate Change. The forest department claims this land is theirs. But the
Ministry of Public Administration has allotted this land from the Ministry of
Land.
According to the
Environmental Protection Act, construction of any kind of installation is
prohibited in this environmentally endangered forest. For this reason, letters
were sent from the forest department to various departments stating that 'this
land is not negotiable. In the allocation letter of the Ministry of Land, one
of the country's biodiversity-rich forest lands has been shown as
non-agricultural khas land.
The land ministry said the
allotted land includes 400 acres of hills and 300 acres of springs. They have
taken the value of the land as 4 thousand 803 crore 64 lakh 23 thousand 600
taka. But the symbolic price for the academy is only 1 lakh taka.
In 1935, the British government declared it a protected forest. The forest department has been maintaining it for so many years. Jhilangja forest is a safe haven for the country's important wildlife, including endangered Asian wild elephants. According to the forest law, the forest department alone has the authority to lease or not to lease this forest rich in hills and rhymes. But the forest department in its letter to the land ministry said in a circular issued by the land ministry in 1990 that the hills and hill slopes of the Chittagong division were not manageable and that the land would be used mainly by the forest department for afforestation. According to forest law, any kind of installation in such a protected forest is prohibited.
Attaching this report,
Supreme Court Lawyer Sheikh Mohammad Moniruzzaman Kabir filed a writ petition
in the public interest in the High Court.
At the hearing, he said the
forest department owns 700 acres of this forest land. The land ministry has
allotted the land to the public administration ministry ignoring the objections
of the forest department. Although the owner of this forest is not the Ministry
of Land.
At the hearing, the lawyer
said the country's highest court has a verdict to protect the environmentally
sensitive area. There, a government department destroyed 700 acres of forest
and allocated land to build a training academy there. If an academy is built
here, a terrible environmental catastrophe will come down. Following the
hearing, the High Court stayed the forest allotment order for three months and
issued a rule.
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Topic : High Court Training academy
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