C T Online Desk: The cabinet department has given instructions to remove 5 risky buildings and illegal structures of the District Bar Association from court hill.
On Monday (July 18), a letter signed by Saiful Islam Bhuiyan, Deputy Secretary of the Cabinet Department, was issued to the Secretary, Law and Justice Department and instructed to inform the Cabinet Department of the implementation progress by taking appropriate measures as per the said directive.
According to the circular, Chittagong Divisional Commissioner’s office, District Commissioner’s office, learned district and session judge’s courts are located in the center of Chittagong district city on 11.72 acres of hill land called Parir Pahar number 1 Khas Khatiyan. At present, the office of the Divisional Commissioner and the office of the Deputy Commissioner are located in a two-storied building built in 1892-94 on the model of the Writers’ Building in Calcutta. Also, 71 courts of the Judiciary are housed here in 3 multi-storied buildings constructed recently. During the time of the then military dictator Ziaur Rahman, in 1977, the Chittagong District Lawyers Association took a lease of only 12.90 acres of land, showing thumbs up to all relevant laws and regulations of the country, and forcibly occupied 1.79 acres of government land in the last 20 years. 5 risky illegal multi-storied buildings with a maximum of 11/12 floors have been built one after the another. Around these buildings, more than two hundred illegal structures have been built. At present, due to unplanned and excessive illegal constructions in Pari Hill, serious dangerous situations have arisen including landslides,, fire hazards, security hazards. In view of this, in the light of the second party’s fortnightly confidential report of August 2021, the Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs to take necessary measures to evacuate all illegal structures including the risky buildings of lawyers in Parir Pahar and to ensure that no more structures are to be built in Parir Pahar.
Disregarding these instructions, the District Bar Association arbitrarily cut trees and laid the foundation stone of a multi-storied building without complete approval. Recently, Chittagong District Lawyers’ Association ignored the objections and obstacles of Chittagong WASA and the district administration and installed a deep tube well in this Parir Hill of sandy soil.
Fire Service and Civil Defense and Department of Environment have opined in their reports that all these buildings of the lawyer association are very dangerous. This dangerous condition of Parir Pahar has resulted in fatal collapse and extensive loss of life and property on important buildings such as District Commissioner’s office, Divisional Commissioner’s office, 3 buildings of Judicial Department, neighboring Bangladesh Bank, District and Sub-Registrar Office, CDA Building, New Market and Zahoor Hawker MarketBefore this, various instructions were given from around 25 government departments to clear illegal and dangerous structures
