The High Court on Monday directed the authorities to recover the encroached land of the Infectious Diseases Hospital in the capital’s Mohakhali and hand it over to the hospital within 30 days.
The bench of Justice Khizir Ahmed Choudhury and Justice Md Ziaul Haque issued the order after holding a preliminary hearing on a public-interest writ petition.
Lawyer Md Shafiqul Islam Mizan represented the petitioner.
He said the court had directed the Ministry of Health to recover the hospital’s occupied land and hand it over within 30 days. The ministry was also asked to submit a compliance report to the court.
A national daily published a report on 3 April about the encroachment of land belonging to the Infectious Diseases Hospital.
Following the report, the Poppers Legal Aid Foundation sent a letter to the hospital authorities seeking information about the land.
In response, the hospital authorities said 32 acres of land were currently allocated in the hospital’s name.
Of the total land, around eight acres house the hospital’s seven-storey main building, residential quarters for officers and employees, a mosque and a water pump.
Other government establishments, including the BMRC building, NIMU and TC, a TEMO workshop, a family planning warehouse, the IPH School, staff quarters of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital, and residential quarters for officers and employees of the Leprosy Hospital, are situated on the remaining land.
The hospital authorities said no documents allocating land to those government establishments had been found in their office.
However, the land office sends notices every Bangla year asking the hospital authorities to pay land tax for the entire 32 acres.
The authorities also said outsiders had illegally constructed makeshift and permanent houses, shops, a kitchen market, an ice factory, and rickshaw and auto-rickshaw garages on the remaining vacant land.
As a result, a significant portion of the government land is now under the occupation of outsiders.
The Poppers Legal Aid Foundation later filed the writ petition with the High Court, attaching the media report.
