The bench of Justice Enayetur Rahim and Justice MdMostafizurRahman issued the order during hearing on threecases filed under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act2000.

The court ordered continuing the cases every working day without any break after the startof hearing in the cases according to section 20 of the Act.

It ordered formation of a monitoring committee with the Additional District Magistrate, Additional Superintendent of Police (Admin), a representative of Civil Surgeon, and related Public Prosecutor (PP) to ensure the presence and safety of witnesses of the cases.

The PP concerned will coordinate the committee and submit monthly report about its activities to the Supreme Court, Home Ministry and the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, the court said.

If there are multiple tribunals in a district, all the PPs will be included in the committee and the senior most one will coordinate the committee, it added. The monitoring committee will be accountable if the state side fails to ensure presence of the witnesses to the court on the scheduled date without any valid reason, it said.

The committee will monitor and take steps to ensure issuance of notices summoning witnesses at the possible quickest time.

The tribunal may recommend taking departmental action and stop the salary of the official witnesses --magistrate, police, doctors and other experts if they fail to appear before as witnesses without any satisfactory reason, it said.

The court thinks that it is a necessity to formulate a witness protection law and it expects the government will do it soon.

The HC bench came up with the directives while hearing bail petitions in three cases filed with the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal.