The High Court will pass its order on Sunday on the petition filed challenging legality of the police move to collect personal information about tenants and landlords in Dhaka.
The bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Iqbal Kabir fixed the date after hearing the petition yesterday, petitioner Jyotirmoy Barua told the Dhaka Tribune.
He filed the petition on March 3, two days after he had sent a legal notice requesting the government to refrain from seeking the information.
He also sought the court’s direction to stop the use of any information already collected from the landlords and tenants.
The petitioner sought directives on the secretaries of the ministry of Law and Home Affairs, and the inspector general of police and the commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police to store the collected personal information in “safe custody,” so that no party can use it until a specific law is enacted to protect the information.
According to the constitution, a citizen has every right to maintain secrecy of his/her personal life. The police cannot seek information from the ordinary people, Jyotirmoy told the Dhaka Tribune.
According to section 42 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, every citizen must help the police for the government or investigation work. If necessary, the police can also take action under this section.
Dhaka Metropolitan sources said that the tenants’ information would be collected and maintained by the city’s respective police stations and shared through a central Dhaka Metropolitan database.
The information would be stored categorised under respective neighbourhoods.
