The High Court (HC) yesterday directed the government to issue a gazette notification identifying COVID-19 as an epidemic disease. It also asked the government to inform it by today what steps the government has taken to prevent the spread of the virus. The HC bench comprising Justice Md Ashraful Kamal and Justice Sardar Md Rashed Jahangir came up with the orders while hearing a writ petition filed seeking the court’s directives on closure of all the courts across the country during the outbreak of coronavirus.

The court also fixed today for resuming hearing on the petition. Law and Life Foundation yesterday filed the writ petition with the HC which also sought court order on concerned authorities so that people coming from abroad are kept in state-designated quarantine centres. In the petition Law and Life Foundation also prayed to the HC to ask the government to form a high-powered monitoring committee to examine whether the quarantine centres run properly.

In the petition, the organisation stated that all the academic institutions had been closed to keep people safe from coronavirus. But the courts where a large number of people gather on a daily basis are not closed yet. It cited that the courts too needed to be closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

After emerging from the court, Barrister Humayun Kabir Pallab, who moved the petition told reporters that there was no explanation in the Communicable Diseases Prevention, Control and Eradication Act, 2018 about COVID-19.  Therefore, the HC bench directed the government to issue a gazette notification incorporating the COVID-19 into the law so that law enforcers could take action against people who violates government instruction in this regard, he added.