In the full judgement released yesterday, the High Court bench gave four other directives in this regard
The High Court has asked the government to set up chemical testing units at all ports, within the next six months, in order to test whether imported fruits have been treated with harmful chemicals.
In the full judgement released yesterday, the High Court bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury (now elevated to Appellate Division) and Justice Jahangir Hossain (now a member of International Crimes Tribunal-1) also gave four other directives in this regard.
The court asked the Inspector General of Police, Director General of Rapid Action Battalion and Director of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution to monitor fruit markets and depots across the country every month using surveillance committees to ensure that no one can sell chemical-treated fruits in the markets.
The bench further ordered the Rajshahi Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Rajshahi Range Deputy Inspector General of Police to deploy personnel at mango groves (commercial) in district and in other major harvesting areas to stop the use of chemicals for ripening mangoes.
Apart from the directives, the court also asked the government to formulate a guideline for controlling chemical usage for ripening fruits, within the six months.
These guidelines should be distributed among field-level administration across the country so that they could take action in this regard, the verdict added.
At the same time, the law enforcement agencies have been asked to take action as per existing laws for using toxic chemicals on fruits.
The HC bench also directed the government to issue a circular announcing the court directives for field-level administration officials.
The short verdict was delivered in February 29, 2012 following a writ petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh in 2010.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
