PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION (PIL)

Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST)

1. Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs
2. Inspector General of Prisons
3. Deputy Commissioner, Cox’s Bazar
4. Jailor, Cox’s Bazar Jail

BLAST filed a writ regarding 338 Burmese (Myanmar nationals) who were incarcerated in the Cox’s Bazar District Jail as foreign under trial prisoners for years wholly arbitrarily and without lawful authority, in violation of their fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The nature of their crimes were different but mostly under the Foreigners Act and Passport Act. Most of them were languishing in jail over the stipulated time for trial governed by S.339C of the CrPC, and several under trial prisoners had been in jail for periods longer than the maximum term, during which they could have been sentenced if convicted.

The High Court issued a Rule Nisi upon the respondents to show cause as to why the continued custody and deprivation of liberty of the 338 under trial foreign prisoners should not be declared to be without lawful authority and why the respondents should not be directed to produce the prisoners in Court in order to satisfy that they were not being held without lawful authority, and why their immediate release should not be directed.

Mr. Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Hussain
Mr. Justice Mamnoon Rahman