HC directs to halt all activities at Saint Martin Resort

The High Court today (Wednesday) directed the Department of Environment (DoE) to immediately stop all activities of Saint Martin Resort, a tourism resort of Abakash Porjatan Ltd, at Saint Martin's Island, the only coral island of Bangladesh, as the resort has no environmental clearance certificate.

The bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil delivered the verdict after rejecting a writ petition filed by Abakash Porjatan Ltd challenging the legality of two decisions of the DoE.

In the decisions, the DoE has issued an eviction notice on Saint Martin Resort as it has no environmental clearance and the DoE has refused to issue such a certificate to the resort due to a lack of necessary information.

In response to the same writ petition, the HC in 2017 had issued two separate rulings asking the DoE and government to explain why the DoE's decisions should not be declared illegal.

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) later on became a party in the case and contested the rulings.

Yesterday, the HC bench rejected the writ petition of Abakash Porjatan Ltd and declared the DoE's decisions valid.

Following another writ petition filed by Bela, the HC on October 24, 2011 had directed the government to demolish the buildings at the island, which have no environmental clearance certificate.

Senior lawyer AF Hasan Ariff appeared for Abakash Porjatan Ltd while lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hasan argued for Bela.