In Search of Parliamentary Reform: Scope of Private Members’ Initiatives

In Search of Parliamentary Reform: 

Scope of Private Members’ Initiatives

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

Doctoral Candidate (Legislative Studies), King’s College London

Published in Daily Observer, Law and Justice, Dhaka Bangladesh, 21 December 2019 p. 18

Link: https://www.observerbd.com/details.php?id=234503

The Westminster parliament is admittedly a cabinet controlled one. Government’s grip over the Order Paper – the daily schedule of parliamentary business - is a rule. Private members’ chance of agenda setting is rather an exception. While the accountability function of parliament depends much on non-government and opposition activism, our parliament is trailing much behind the modernisation discourse across commonwealth parliaments. Even within the UK House of Commons, various extra-governmental avenues have evolved during the post-World War II era that successfully minimise the adverse impact of cabinet dictatorship within parliament. Parliament of Bangladesh, however, poses a rather gloomy and non-progressive stance in this regard.

Standing Order 14 of the UK House of Commons reserves 20 opposition and 35 backbench days every session. On the Opposition Days, leaders of the opposition parties would decide the issues to be discussed in the House. Government, however, has the power to specify the exact date on which the debates will be scheduled. Once a date is scheduled, a motion - usually critical of government actions or policies - will be debated and voted upon first. Government amendment to the motion will be considered thereafter. Purpose of the tradition is to allow the opposition’s motion a full pledged debate.  

Agenda for the 35 Backbench Business Days are settled by the Backbench Business Committee. Different private member bills and topics chosen by the Backbench Committee and select committee reports chosen by the Liaison Committee would be discussed in the House or in the Westminster Hall. Backbench days ensure that important but uncomfortable issues are not kept off the agenda by the government.

Westminster Hall Debate is an informal extension of the House of Commons that would reduce pressure upon parliamentary time and make sure that questions and concerns of individual members do not pass unattended. Issues raised by individual MPs, public petitions and select committee reports are debated in the Hall without voting. A responsible minister of the government would reply to the concerns. Any other MP interested in the topic may participate the debate. In case a need for voting arises, the matter is referred to the House. 

Apart from these collective tools, individual members may submit non-binding internal petitions to the House of Commons. Members’ petitions are known as Early Day Motions (EDM). These are scarcely debated in the floor. Still they have a very strong signalling purpose when members or group of members express their independent opinion that may be clearly different from their government or party policy. A MP may also raise issues of concern in the Half-an-hour Adjournment Debate at the end of each day’s session. Standing Order 24 of the UK House of Commons permit individual MPs to request Emergency Debate on any matter of urgent importance. If allowed by the Speaker, the application then would be submitted to the House. If the House agrees, a full debate usually follows the next day. A similar tool of activism is Urgent Question. If accepted by the Speaker, it would oblige the concerned minister to come to the Parliament within the day and answer to the House’s satisfaction. Recently retiring Speaker John Bercow extensively permitted Urgent Questions and thereby took the parliament’s power of scrutiny to a new height.

Compared to the House of Commons, MPs in Jatya Sangsad have some traditional tools like parliamentary questions, motions for adjournment, half-an-hour discussion, short discussion, call-attention and private member resolutions. MPs’ chance to address the pressing needs of time through these archaic devices remain farfetched.

Parliamentary Questions have failed to generate substantial accountability for different procedural and attitudinal issues surrounding our parliamentary practice. Though there is a scope of asking short notice questions and supplementary questions, governments have faced little difficulties in tackling the toothless bites of questioning. Requirement of longer notice and ability of the ministers to avoid answering uneasy questions or answer in very vague or general terms frustrates the very purpose of accountability. Compared to the UK House of Common’s Urgent Question device, ours is hardly an urgent one.

If a Member of Parliament feels that the question and answer to it involves a matter of public importance, which needs further factual clarification, s/he may move a motion for Half-an-Hour Discussion on the issue. Unfortunately, these discussions are rarely allowed. Lacking the power to inject something in parliamentary agenda in any other way, the opposition parties have tried Motions for Adjournment of parliamentary business to discuss matters of recent and urgent public importance. Moved two hours before every days’ business, the government usually considers the adjournment motions as disruption of parliamentary agenda. Opposition parties are also sometimes accused of using it as political point scoring show rather than as a sincere commitment to accountability. 

Individual MPs may also request Short Discussion on such matters of urgent public importance. One particularly hard qualification of the Short Discussion is the requirement of the Speaker consulting the Leader of the House, i.e., the Prime Minister. Individual MPs have a scope to move a Call Attention Motion. Once admitted, the sponsoring MP would be given a fixed time, usually two to three minutes, to discuss and bring to attention of a minister, any matter of urgent public importance. Minister concerned may reply but there is no guarantee of a follow up debate or questioning over the issue.

The members may move Private Member Resolutions to address and discuss important issues of public policy and government accountability. Such a resolution, requiring ten days of advance notice, may demand government actions or/and support to address the concern raised. Absent the government endorsement, success rate for private member resolutions are unfortunately very slim.

Compared to the House of Commons, individual government and opposition party members in Bangladesh have very limited role in agenda setting. Frustration over the continuous under performance of parliament in its accountability function therefore needs be addressed by looking into this area of parliamentary reform. Individual tools that evolved in the UK Parliament during its post-World War II era of modernisation could constitute a persuasive jurisprudence of reform for our parliament. Particularly when we call ours a Westminster parliament.

Whither the Law of Torts in Bangladesh?

Whither the Law of Torts in Bangladesh?

M. Jashim Ali Chowdhury

Assistant Professor, Department of Law, University on Chittagong, Bangladesh

Published in Law Vision (Issue 11: 2012-2013), pp 43-49, Published by the Department of Law, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

 Page 43

1.       Introduction of the Law of Tort in British India

The fascinating branch of Law of Tort is evolved, developed and nourished rather than made or enacted. In Hindu and Muslim legal systems, tort had a place and scope much narrower than it had under the English Common Law. The first English courts established in this subcontinent were the Mayor’s Courts in three Presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. These courts were mandated ‘to give judgments and sentences according to justice and right.’[1] The English judges therefore drew upon the English Common Law and Statute Law as found suitable to the genius of this region. Thereafter the Supreme Courts were substituted for Mayor’s Courts which again were substituted by the High Courts in three Presidency towns but the jurisdiction to administer the English Common Law were continued. Even the local courts were instructed to follow the rule of ‘Equity, Justice and Good Conscience’ where no local laws or customs were available. Later on, the Privy Council interpreted that applying ‘Equity, Justice and Good Conscience’ would extend to the application of Common Law and English Statutes where situation permitted.[2] Even after the termination of British domination, it has been held here that Section 9 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 which enables a Civil Court to try all suits of a Civil Nature, impliedly confers the jurisdiction to apply the Law of Tort as principles of Justice, Equity and Good Conscience.[3]

2.       Does Bangladesh have any Law of Tort?

In contrast to criminal law (in which the offence is against the State and the State is the plaintiff), the offence in tort law is against a person and that person is the plaintiff. We call it a ‘civil wrong’ which attracts a common law action calling for un-liquidated damages rather than punishments. Damages is un-liquidated because it is usually not pre-supposed, pre-determined or pre-prescribed by any provision of law. And all these explain why vast percentage of the Law of Tort is un-codified and un-enacted and dwell on the discretion of the court rather than on the inks and pens of statute. Hence the students of Bangladesh often ask a very usual question, ‘Does Bangladesh have any Law of Tort?’ This is a question resembling very much to the one we face in the classes of British Constitution - Does Britain have a Constitution?

Both the questions, it is submitted, are based on the misconceived notion of law - where it is seen as an instrument to be produced in a visible form. In this sense, the Constitution and the Law of Tort are meant to be something like a People’s Charter or an Act of Parliament which of course are missing in Britain and Bangladesh respectively. But thinking from another side of the arguments, both the British Constitution and

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the Bangladeshi Law of Tort are a complex amalgam of institutions, principles and practices, precedents, usages and traditions. It is not one document but hundreds of them.[4]

The recent trend is to deal with the separate branches of Tort within separate statutory frameworks. Many of our statutes have tried to address and accommodate various forms of tortuous behaviour in different fashions – sometimes these are made criminal offence and some other times civil remedies are provided. The High Court Division as well exerts a substantial role in redressing tortuous behaviour in exercise of its writ jurisdiction. But very often, these remedies appear grossly inadequate and too nominal. Hence, it is felt by a good number of people[5] that without reliance on statutory provisions, pressing damages as a tort claim purely on equitable ground is quite unlikely in Bangladesh. Therefore the students think if Bangladesh has got any Law of Tort at all or not.

3.       The Tortuous Behaviours and their placement in our laws

As a wrongful behaviour Tort may affect one’s Person, Property and the both. As per Section 44 of the Penal Code, 1860 the word ‘injury’ denotes any harm whatever illegally caused to any person’s body, mind, reputation or property. 

Torts affecting the victim’s person may relate to his body (e.g., Assault, Battery), his freedom (e.g., False Imprisonment), his reputation (e.g, Defamation) and both his reputation and freedom (e.g., Malicious Prosecution or Civil Action, Abuse of Legal Process etc).

Torts affecting the victim’s property may relate to his incorporeal or personal property (e.g., violations of patent, trademark, trade name, copyright, easement rights, reversionary rights etc), his immovable property (e.g., Trespass, Dispossession, Waste, etc), and his movable property (e.g., Trespass, Conversion, Detention, etc).

Torts affecting both the person and property of the victim include Nuisance, Negligence, Fraud, etc.

Assault and Battery - Any gesture calculated to excite in the person threatened a reasonable apprehension that the person threatening intends immediately to offer violence, or in the language of the Penal Code, is ‘about to use criminal force’[6], if coupled with a present ability to carry such intention in execution, constitute an assault in law. The intention as well as the commission of the act makes it a battery.[7] Chapter XVI of the Penal Code (Sections 349-358) deals with the use of criminal force and assault, whereas Sections 299-338 deal with widest possible range of offences affecting the body and life of persons, unborn child and infants. However, while criminal proceeding against the wrongdoer is sanctioned by Penal Code, a civil action claiming damages for these attacks is missing in Bangladesh.

False Imprisonment – False imprisonment is a total restraint of liberty which may be actual, physical or constructive, by show of authority, say for example telling someone that he is wanted and he must accompany him. The Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, the Special Powers Act 1974, the Metropolitan Police Ordinance 1986 and various other Acts of Parliament

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provide a wide range of powers upon the police to arrest and detain individuals. Under Section 43 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, a private individual may arrest and handover the detainee to the police. Sections 339 to 348 of the Penal Code deal with a range of wrongful restraints and confinements. Sections 359 to 374 cover unlawful deprivations of personal freedom in the form of abduction, kidnapping, slavery and forced labour. Some safeguards provided in Article 33 of the Constitution of Bangladesh seek to prevent arbitrary arrest and detention of individuals. Violation of these may result in an action for constitutional remedy under the writ of habeas corpus. Section 561 of the CrPC may also come to aid. However both the remedies fail in providing remedies in terms of damages in tort. They extend only to an order of release of the person detained unless in an exceptional exercise of discretion the Court decides otherwise. So far in only one case, the High Court Division ordered a compensatory cost to the victims.[8]

Negligence - A liability for negligence arises only when the accused owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. This duty may be imposed either by law or by a reasonable expectation of care.[9] Reasonable expectation arises from a reasonable foresee-ability of injury.[10] Again, the duty of taking care resides on the basis of forseeability, not on the basis of proximity between the plaintiff and defendant.[11]

Under Sections 284-89 of the Penal Code, 1860 the custodian of poisonous substance performer of rash or negligent work, negligent builders, custodian of animals etc have subjected to punishment for negligence in dealing with their affairs. Apart from the Penal Code provisions, the carriers of passengers and goods are subjected to legal duty of care.[12] The directors of a company, agents, physicians and surgeons, bankers, counsels, authorities dealing with fire, fire arms, fireworks and explosive substances, poisonous drugs, other dangerous articles[13] are made subject to varying degree of liability for negligence. However, all these are fixed by statute as nominal fines coupled with punishments in appropriate cases. These being the statutory ceiling, the Courts enjoy a very little discretion to go beyond these to offer any equitable damages to the victims.

Defamation - Defamatory statement is one which tends to injure the reputation of the plaintiff. Whether a statement is defamatory or not depends upon how the right thinking members of the society are likely to take it.[14] Section 499 provides at least ten excuses that may mitigate the liability for defamation. It requires that besides being true, the imputation must be shown to have been made for public good. The exception no 9 provided in Section 499 of the Penal Code covers the judges, counsel, pleader, witnesses and parties to a suit under certain terms and conditions.[15] Article 78(3) of the Constitution indemnifies a Member of Parliament in respect of anything said by him in Parliament or in any

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committee thereof.[16] For the journalists, columnists of print media and discussants of talk shows in electronic media, even disclosure of truth in good faith may not be available as a defence.[17] Regarding the defamation in cyber space, the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 treats them as criminal offence. There punishments of lighter/severe form have been fixed.[18]

Malicious Prosecution - Malicious prosecutions is an unsuccessful prosecution terminated in favour of the defendant and it is found that the proceeding was brought against without any reasonable or probable cause. Such a wrongful use of judicial proceeding may cause damages to his reputation, person or property and is condemned by the Statute Laws of Bangladesh. Section 95 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows a remedy to the defendant to get compensation. Section 35A of the Code of Civil Procedure also allows compensatory cost in favour of the sufferer. Apart from these, statutes like the Women and Children Oppression (Repression) Act 2000 has made wrongful prosecution a punishable offence. Even where no statutory remedy is available, the sufferer may decide to go for action of defamation.

Trespass to Immovable property - This tort is committed by entry upon land, by remaining there and thereafter by doing act affecting the sole possession of the plaintiff. The Penal Code deals with a range of trespass issues. Sections 297 and 441to 462 of the Penal Code, 1860 provides punishment for various categories of trespasses including house breaking, criminal trespass etc. Sections 8 and 9 of the Specific Relief Act 1887 provide remedy against dispossession. Remedies like temporary and permanent injunction, negative injunction and mandatory injunction are made available therein. The Code of Civil Procedure allows the landlord a suit for ejectment, mesne profit and profit prendre.[19] To deal with trespass by animals, the Cattle Trespass Act 1871 is there.

Trespass to Goods - Trespass to goods is termed as tort of Conversion as well. Conversion takes place by wrongful taking, by parting, by selling, by keeping and by destruction. The provisions relating to theft in the Penal Code deal with the punishment of criminal trespass to goods in the forms of theft, extortion, robbery, dacoity, criminal misappropriation of property and receiving stolen property etc.[20] Taking of Goods in cases of distress, however, may be covered by Sections 27-30 of the Sale of Goods Act 1930.

Nuisance - Nuisance means an unlawful interference with a person’s use or enjoyment of land, or some right over, or in connection with it. Nuisance is of two types: (i) Public or common nuisance (ii) Private nuisance, or tort of nuisance. Public nuisance is interference with the right of public in general and is punishable

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as an offence, for example, obstructing a public way by digging a trench. Such obstruction may cause inconvenience to many persons but none can be allowed to bring a civil action for that. Public nuisance can be subject to only one suit and that is under Section 91 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The Attorney General or on his permission two or more persons may initiate a suit for damages. If any private individual wants to sue he must show some special damages more than what other peoples have suffered.[21] In such cases the individual concerned first have to recourse to the municipal or local corporations and public bodies having the power to abate such nuisance. Failure on their part may lead to petition for writ of mandamus under Article 102 of the Constitution.[22] Besides, the concept of Representative Suit finding place in Order I Rule 8 of the Code of Civil Procedure may be resorted to.[23]

Private Nuisance includes acts leading to (a) wrongful disturbances of easements or servitudes; or (b) wrongful escape of deleterious substances into another’s property, such as smoke, smell, fumes, gas, noise, water, filth, heat, electricity, disease germs, trees, vegetation, animals, etc. Sections 268 -294A of the Penal Code covers 11 types of public nuisances including environment, food and health contaminating activities. Apart from the Penal Code, the Specific Relief Act provides an array of judicial remedies in terms of mandatory, prohibitive, temporary and permanent injunction. 

4.       The Grey Areas of Law of Tort

Unacceptable impunity for public servants, service providers and autonomous bodies – The news of wrong treatment, lack of service from local bodies, utility providers, arrest and torture of innocent persons etc are very frequent in Bangladesh. But there is no visible remedy in the justice system of our country. To proceed against a public servant, including the military, air and naval stuff, a prior application for consent from the government is required. A list of the public servants so entitled is given in Sections 13, 14 and 21 of the Penal Code, 1860.

The Anglo-American legal system based on the medieval common law theory ‘King can do no wrong’ has paved the way for the theory that Crown or State cannot be sued without its consent. But the English theory of King doing no wrong, it is argued, is basically attributed to the person of the King. Therefore, it is not conceivable, how in Bangladesh, in absence any monarchy, the executive becomes entitled to such a privilege. Here the executive is not the sovereign and the legislature is within its constitutional limit. Therefore, public policy now requires that the State submit to the jurisdiction of judicial tribunals to answer for torts committed by its officers against the person or property of its citizens.[24]

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Inadequacy of Consumer Protection - A new Chapter began on 6th April 2009 with the adoption of the Consumer Rights Protection Act 2009 as a comprehensive legislation. But a close analysis shows that the Act, containing so many loopholes, has failed to develop the existing system. The Act provides that any complaint concerning defective product resulting in substantial financial or physical damage must be filed within 30 days. If pondered over the fact, we can see there are many long-term effects which cannot be identified readily after using the products. 30 days time span is thus too short a scale. Thus the Act has failed to keep up with reasonableness and medical science.[25] Section 71(1) of the Act stipulates that no individual can make any complaint about violation of consumer rights to the court of a 1^st class magistrate or the CMM. Thereby the people are placed at the mercy of the Council for enforcing the rights given to them, which would ultimately prove to be a nugatory.

Inappropriate dealing with Medical Negligence - As the law on tort of negligence is uncodified in the form of statute, criminal cases are filed against medical negligence under the provisions of Penal Code. But it cannot be appreciated as a proper way because these provisions are applicable not only in the field of medicine but to other professions as well. The main problem of proceeding under the Penal Code is that it says nothing about the principles as to how the duty of care should be determined, what the standard of care is and how damages should be proved.[26] Recently, however, the Law Commission of Bangladesh has undertaken a project to develop a comprehensive draft on Medical Negligence.

The underdeveloped accident jurisprudence - In Bangladesh most of the naval accidents happen because of the negligence of the launch and motor vehicle operators and their owners. Whenever any launch accident occurs basically the government pays minimum amount as compensation to the victim in case of death. In road accident cases, given the silence of law, usually the owner of the vehicle comes to an agreement with the victim’s family in terms of some monetary compensation.

In road accidents, Section 304B of the Penal Code governs the field which states that whoever causes the death of any person by rash or negligent driving may be imprisoned for maximum three years, or may be fined, or may be subjected to both. This is so where the death does not amount to culpable homicide. If it becomes a culpable homicide, there may be life imprisonment or death penalty.[27] But since the expression ‘rash or negligent driving’ does not presuppose the existence of a killing intent in the driver, a strong argument remains that culpable homicide can never be committed under this section and as such the maximum available punishment is three years' imprisonment irrespective of the degree of blameworthiness of the offence committed.[28]

The Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983 (Section 137 to 172) deals with penalties and fine or both for acts made punishable therein. Employers are required by the Employers’ Liability

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(Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 to hold liability cover for their employees and the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires motor­ists to be insured for damage to third parties.

At a general level, the function of a remedy in the law of tort is to relieve the claimant in respect of the loss or damage he has suffered rather than to punish the defendant. Had there been a Tort based approach to accident cases, then the owner of the launch or motor vehicles might have to pay compensation to each of the victims of the accident.

Inadequate safeguards against environmental torts – Recently the environmental tort is a separately recognized species of public nuisance. While the countries of the world are moving towards a rapid evolution of environmental tort,[29] Bangladesh still remains in the era of piecemeal and nominal protection against environmental hazards. In most cases the Penal Code and other laws provide a nominal fine for violation of environmental laws, while a tort based approach could have help us much.

A major part of the pollution in Bangladesh occurs due to emission of smoke and sound from motor vehicles and factories. A variety of approaches have been developed to tackle the pollution which include punishment of polluters through regulation, taxation, fines, tort suits, and other deterrents. Section 6 of the Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act, 1995 and Section 4 of the Environment Conservation Rules, 1997 provide restriction on vehicles emitting smoke injurious to environment and health. Except these, there is another law namely the Brick Burning (Control) Act, 1989 which controls emission of smoke. Section 150 of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance, 1983 prohibits running of smoke emitting motor vehicle which is made punishable with fine upto two hundred taka only.

5.       Concluding Remarks

In Bangladesh, we need specific codification of the law of Tort which can insure not only ‘access’ to justice but insurance to ‘justice’.[30] Given the absence of such a Code, as the Indian experiences show, the judiciary of Bangladesh could play a significant role through the variety of means available at its disposal.

In India, the development of the absolute liability rule in the M.C. Mehta v. Union of India[31]  case and the Supreme Court’s direction on multi-national corporation liability, recognition of tort by employees of government, evolution of tort of sexual harassment and grant of interim compensation to a rape victim[32] have brought significant changes. The Bhopal Gas Leak disaster[33] has triggered a new path of tort jurisprudence, leading to environment tort, toxic torts, governmental torts, multi-national company’s liability, congenital torts, stricter absolute liability, etc. Could we do something like that?

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[1] Letters Patent of September 24, 1726, The Thirteenth year of the reign of George I

[2] Waghela Rajsanji v. Sheikh Masulddin (1887) 14 IA 89, 96 quoted in Ratan Lal & Dhiraj Lal’s The Law of Torts, 23^rd Edition, 1998, Wadhwa and Company, Nagpur, p. 2

[3] Union Carbide Corporation v Union of India (Bhopal Gas Disaster Case) 1988 MPLJ 540

[4] Munro, W B., quoted in Vishnoo Bhagwan and Vidya Bhushan, World Constitutions, 7^th Edition, 1998, Sterling Publishers (Pvt) Ltd, p. 17

[5] Personal interview of Author with Mr Abduallh Al Mamun, Assistant Professor, Dept of Law, CU (ex Judicial Magistrate) and Mr Golam Morshed, Joint District Judge of the Feni Judgeship.

[6] The Penal Code 1860, Section 350

[7] Ratan Lal & Dhiraj Lal’s The Law of Torts, 23^rd Edition, 1998, Wadhwa and Company, Nagpur, p. 216

[8] Bilkis Akther Hossain v. Government 2 MLR (1997) 113 Para 46

[9] Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928)

[10] Glasgow Corporation v Muir [1943] AC 448, 458; Booker v Wenborn [1962] 1 W.L.R. 162

[11] Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100

[12] The Carriers Act 1865 (Section 3 and 5-10); Bills of Lading Act 1856, Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1925

[13] The Electricity Act 1910, The Electricity Supply Act 1948

[14] D.P. Chaudhary v. Manjulata AIR 1997 Raj 170

[15] Supra Note 7 pp. 522-523

[16] Ataur Rahman Khan v. Md. Nasim and another 52 DLR 16 - “Article 78(3) confers immunity, inter alia, in respect of ‘anything said in Parliament’. The word ‘anything’ is of the widest import and equivalent to ‘everything’ (Para 23).”

[17] Re S.K. Sundaram 2001 CrLJ 2932 quoted in V. Venkatesan, Truth as a Defence: How effective Is the amendment of the Contempt of Courts Act?, Indian Journal of Constitutional Law, Volume 4, pp 164-178 at p. 171

[18] The Information and Communication Technology Act 2006, Sections 68 and 82

[19] Mesne Profit means profits which have accrued while there was a dispute over land ownership. If it is determined that the party using the land did not have legal ownership, the true owner can sue for some or all of the profits made in the interim by the illegal tenant, which are thus called "mesne profits." A profit a prendre enables a person to take part of the soil or produce of land that someone else owns. It is a right to take from the land, as in the mining of minerals.

[20]  Supra Note 6, Sections 378-404 and 410-414

[21]  Supra Note 7 p. 532

[22] Take for example Dr. Mohiuddin Farooque v. Bangladesh 49 DLR (AD) 1 (FAP 20 case), Dr. Mohiuddin Farooque v Bangladesh and others 48 DLR (1996) (Radio Active Milk Powder case), Dr. Mohiudin Farooquee v. Bangladesh 55 DLR (2003) 613 (Two Stroke Motor Vehicle Case), Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh v. Bangladesh, (W/P No 324/20090), 30 BLD (HCD) 125 (Pure Food Case), Salma Sobhan v. Government of Bangladesh and others, W/P No. 6070/1997; Judgment delivered on 31 May, 2001 (Unreported) (Fire incidents in Garments case), etc.

[23] Based on the author’s personal interview with Mr Alamgir Mohammad Faruqui, Senior Judicial Magistrate of Feni.

[24] Edwin M. Borchard, Government Liability in Tort, 34 Yale Law Journal, 1 1924, p. 7

[25] Introducing Tort in Bangladesh, http://lawlecturesheet.blogspot.com/2011/01/blog-post.html

[26]Implementation of existing laws on Medical Negligence in Bangladesh, Available Online: http://pharmacyzoneustc.blogspot.com/2011/07/part-vi-implementation-of-existing-laws.html

[27] Supra Note 6, Section 302

[28] Khan Khalid Adnan, Road accident: Is it a demon beyond control? The Daily Star, Law and Our rights, September 9, 2011; http://www.thedailystar.net/law/2011/09/02/index.htm

[29] Even a British Court took cognizance of a tort claim for the arsenic disaster caused in Bangladesh by the development agency’s negligence in a case named Sutradhar v NERC. See: Atkins, P. J. and Hassan, M. M. and Dunn, C. E. (2006) ’Toxic torts : arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh and the legal geographies of responsibility.’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers., 31 (3). pp. 272-285.

[30] Siddiqui MS, Importance of Tort Act in restoring justice, The Financial Times, June 09, 2009 Available: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2009/06/09/65.html

[31] M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (River Ganges Pollution) (1987) 4 SCC 463; M.C. Mehta  v. Union of India (Ganges Water pollution II) AIR (1988) 1 SCC 471

[32] Delhi Domestic Working Women's Forum v. Union of India and others Writ petition (CRL) No.362/93

[33] Supra Note 3