HC stays allotment of forest land for civil service training academy

The High Court on Monday stayed for three months an allotment of 700 acres of land in the reserved forest at Jhilnaza area adjacent to the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf marine drive road to build a civil service training academy.

The High Court bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Kamrul Hossain Mollah passed the order after hearing a writ petition filed by a Supreme Court lawyer, Sheikh AKM Moniruzzaman Kabir.

The lawyer said that he filed the writ petition annexing a newspaper report.

After hearing, the High Court also issued a ruling upon the respondents to explain in four weeks as to why the allotment of 700 acres of land in the reserved forest to build a training academy for the government officials should not be declared illegal.

Cabinet secretary, environment secretary, land secretary, public administration secretary and other respondents have been asked to comply with the ruling.

According to the published report, the allotted reserved forest area is environmentally critical. The land was allotted by the Ministry of Land, ignoring the objections of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change.

According to the environment protection act, there is no scope to allot environmentally critical land or reserved forest land for any establishment.

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