The High Court (HC) on Thursday declared the decision to award performance bonuses to employees of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa as illegal.

An HC bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo delivered the verdict after hearing a writ petition.

Counsel Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua represented the petitioner, lawyers AM Masum and Syed Mahshib Hossain stood for Dhaka Wasa and Deputy Attorney General Arobinda Kumar Roy represented the state during the hearing in the court.

Lawyer Jyotirmoy said architect Mobasher Hossain, on behalf of Consumer Association of Bangladesh (CAB), filed the writ petition challenging the legality of Dhaka Wasa's decision to award performance bonus to its employees and increase water tariff willingly on July 31 last year.

On August 16, the HC imposed an embargo on the awarding performance bonus to its employees for three months during a primary hearing of the writ.

Apart from this, the court issued a rule to explain why it won’t be illegal to increase water tariff without formatting any policy.

Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives secretary, Dhaka Wasa board, Dhaka Wasa chairman, managing director, chief executive officer and others were asked to reply to the rule within four weeks.

A petition was also submitted to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court seeking a stay order on the HC rule, but it was rejected.

On October 11, the Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division directed to dispose of the writ petition by keeping the HC order unchanged.

On November 16, Barrister AM Masum, on behalf of the Wasa, submitted an affidavit stating that the performance bonuses to its employees were given eight times since the 2011-2012 fiscal year (FY).  

A huge amount of bonus money was given to the Wasa staffers for the last few years.

Of them, four bonuses were given to them for FY 2019-2020 while three for FY 2020-2021.

According to section 22 of the Wasa Act, the water tariff can be increased by five percent with consent from the board without formatting any policy due to inflation.

Besides, the Wasa can award performance bonuses to its staffers as per Employment Regulations-2020.

The authorities of the Wasa have increased the water tariff for 15 times since 2009.