The High Court on Wednesday summoned deputy commissioners of five districts and Directorate General of Department of Environment (DoE) to appear before it on May 17 for not fully complying with its order to raze  illegal brick kilns in Dhaka and its adjacent districts to check air pollution . 

The HC bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Justice Mohi Uddin Shamim passed the order after hearing a contempt of court petition.

Also read:HC asks govt to pull down 130 illegal brick kilns in CHT

The deputy commissioners summoned are DCs of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Munshiganj, Manikganj and Gazipur districts.

Advocate Manzil Murshid stood for the writ petitioner while deputy attorney general Kazi Mainul Hasan and Advocate Amatul Karim represented the state and the DoE respectively.

Manzil Murshid said the High Court passed a number of orders to prevent air pollution in Dhaka. 
It also sought a list of illegal brick kilns in Dhaka and its adjacent districts, he said adding 318 brick kilns were found unregistered and the HC asked the authorities concerned to stop operation of those brick kilns.

Recently, a journalist in an investigative report said many brick kilns in Savar are still continuing their operation but  the DCs said they had taken steps to stop their operation, said Manzil.

Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh drew the attention of the court in this regard and filed a writ petition on January 21, 2019.

Also read:Raze all illegal brick kilns in Dhaka & adjoining districts in 15 days: HC

On January 13, 2020, the High Court issued a nine-point order and asked the authorities concerned to implement those.

After taking steps in February, last year, the air pollution reduced remarkably but recently, Dhaka against ranked first in the  list of Air Pollution chart of Air Quality Index. 

Later, the Human Rights organisation filed a supplementary petition to the High Court for stopping operation of the illegal brick kilns.