Published : 14 Sep 2026, 01:28 AM
Updated : 16 Sep 2026, 11:50 AM
The High Court has declared strikes against court rulings or orders illegal, directing legal action against transport owners and workers’ groups that call them.
The ruling came on Sunday after final hearings before Justices Sashanka Shekhar Sarkar and Faysal Hasan Arif.
The court ordered the home secretary, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation to enforce it.
The writ followed a transport strike after the 2017 conviction over the deaths of filmmaker Tareque Masud, journalist-photographer Mishuk Munier and three others in a 2011 crash in Manikganj.
HRPB filed the public-interest case in 2017.
Senior lawyer Manzil Morshed said Article 112 makes court rulings binding on all, while strikes against them are unconstitutional despite the right to appeal.
On Feb 22, 2017, a Manikganj court sentenced bus driver Zamir Hossain to life imprisonment. Transport workers then launched a blockage.
The High Court ordered the strike withdrawn within 24 hours and traffic restored; it ended the next day, with BRTA later submitting compliance.
The crash also killed a driver known only as Mustafiz, Tareque’s production manager Wasim and worker Jamal -- both also known by single names.
Tareque’s wife Catherine Masud, artist Dhali Al-Mamun, his wife Dilara Begum Jolly and assistant Saidul Islam were wounded but survived.
BRTA lawyer Rafiqul Islam said the continuing mandamus bars road-transport strikes or blockades against accident-related sentences.
Morshed said such protests defy court orders and obstruct people’s fundamental right to movement.
