PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION (PIL)

1. Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST)
2. Ain o Shalish Kendro (ASK)
3. Bangladesh MohilaPorishad
4. BRAC
5. Nijera Kori

Bangladesh and others

BLAST, with Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh MohilaPorishad, BRAC Human Rights and Legal Services Programme and Nijera Kori, filed a writ petition challenging the imposition and execution of extra judicial penalties in local salish by persons without any lawful authority. The petition was filed following several newspaper reports and investigations by the petitioners of violence/extra-judicial penalties inflicted on women and girls in the name of ‘fatwas’ by local religious leaders and other powerful persons. It was alleged that a number of deaths, suicides and incidents of grievous hurt of women were arising from punishment given in salish, but the law enforcing agencies took no action to prevent or punish these illegal actions.

The High Court issued a Rule Nisi on directing the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and law-enforcing agencies and Union Parishads and Pourashavas, among others, to take immediate measures against extra-judicial penalties issued in the course of salish, and to show cause as to why their failure to prevent such illegal acts in compliance with their statutory and constitutional obligations should not be declared to be illegal and without any lawful effect.

Mr. Justice Sayed Mahmud Hossain
Mr. Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore

The High Court, after hearing the parties at length, delivered a judgment on 08.07.2010 declaring the imposition of all sorts of extrajudicial punishments in the name of ‘fatwa’ to be illegal, and also affirming that any person involved, present or assisting in any conviction or execution of extrajudicial punishment shall be liable to punishment under the Penal Code, 1860.