The CHT Land Dispute Resolution Commission chair, Justice Khadimul Islam, annoyed at repeated quorum crisis, on Thursday said that the commission would go for ‘special measures’ to resolve the cases filed with it.
The commission could not hear cases as its members from hill communities were boycotting the meetings demanding an amendment to the 2001 law that set up the commission. It failed to hear cases at its 22nd meeting on Wednesday and Thursday because of a quorum crisis.
‘Law will take its own course. If there is a quorum crisis, the commission act has its resolution. We will be resolving the cases filed with the commission through special measures laid out in the act. We cannot sit idle. People have come here for justice,’ Khadimul told reporters at the commission office in Khagrachari.
He said that he and other member present on Wednesday and Thursday had examined the documents of 48 cases prepared for hearing and said the cases would be resolved at the next sitting.
The chairman adjourned the proceedings till May 23.
Moves for hearing cases by the commission remained suspended since 2010 in the face of widespread protests by hill people prompting the government to announce that commission activities would be suspended till the 2001 act was amended.
Protests brewed against the activities of the commission after the chair had pushed for a cadastral survey before the settlement of land disputes.
Commission member Devashish Roy, also the Chakma circle chief and member on the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, opposed the chairman’s version.
‘The commission act leaves no scope for hearing cases without a quorum. I am not aware of any special measure laid out in the act. What he is doing is unilateral,’ he said.
Hill political parties, meanwhile, came down heavily on the commission chair’s move for resolving cases through ‘special measures.’
The Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti and the United People’s Democratic Front found the chairman’s move one-sided and warned of dire consequence if he continued with it.