Ashiyan City gets SC nod to continue housing project on 33 acres of land

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Ashiyan City Development Limited to carry on its housing project on 33 acres of land near the Dhaka airport area. The Appellate Division of the SC, however, scrapped a verdict of the High Court that in a review petition had declared the Ashiyan City's housing project legal.

A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan disposed of two appeals filed by the government and eight rights organisations against the HC verdict with observations.

Rights organisations' lawyer Minhazul Haque Chowdhury said that Ashiyan City can continue its housing project on the 33 acres of land following the Appellate Division judgement. Next steps will be taken after receiving the full text of the verdict, he added.

Additional Attorney General Sk Md Morshed said Ashiyan City cannot run its housing business beyond the 33 acres of land following the Appellate Division verdict.

Ashiyan City’s lawyer Raghib Rauf Chowdhury said that there is no legal bar for this client to carry on the housing project in line with the apex court judgement.

Following a review petition filed by Ashiyan City, the HC on August 16, 2016, scrapped its earlier (January 16, 2014) judgement that had declared the Ashiyan City housing project illegal.

Then the government and eight rights organisations including Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BEA), Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) filed two separate appeals with the Appellate Division challenging the HC verdict of August 16, 2016.

The Appellate Division delivered the verdict on the appeals on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, BELA in a press release said that the Department of Environment had earlier fined Tk 5.0 million (Tk 50 lakh) to Ashiyan City project authorities for earth filling on the water bodies and following an appeal from the Ashiyan City, the Ministry of Forest and Environment ordered it to pay only Tk 0.5 million (Tk 5 lakh) without assigning any logical reason.

Following the allegation against Ashiyan City of land grabbing, the Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka has submitted a report to the HC and it has been found from the report that Ashiyan City has documents for only 41 acres of land, but it filled up 230 acres of land which is flood plain land as per a report from the Bangladesh Land Record and Survey Department, BELA said.

It further said, that no authority has taken any effective steps against Ashiyan City about the allegations of occupying the private individuals’ land.             

Senior lawyers Fida M Kamal, Prabir Neogi, Syeda Rizwana Hasan and Minhazul Haque Chowdhury appeared for the rights organisations, Additional Attorney General Sk Md Morshed argued for the government, while senior lawyers Md Qumrul Haque Siddique and Ahsanul Karim accompanied by Raghib Rauf Chowdhury and Redwan Ahmed Runjib placed arguments for Ashiyan City Development Ltd before the Appellate Division during hearing of the appeals.

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