Writ seeks removal of 52 substandard products from market

A writ petition was filed with the High Court on Thursday seeking removal of 52 products that failed the quality tests of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), reports news agency UNB.

The petition also sought an embargo on the manufacture of the products until improving their qualities.

Palash Mahmud, executive director of Conscious Consumer Society (CCS), filed the petition which is likely to come up for hearing at the bench of justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and justice Razik-Al-Jalil later in the day.

Shihab Uddin Khan, the plaintiff's lawyer, said that according to media reports on 3 and 4 May, BSTI recently tested 406 food samples of 27 types.

“They’ve published results of 313 products. Among them, samples from 52 manufacturers were found to be substandard and adulterated,” he said.

Shihab said that since no step to seize and remove these products from the market was taken, the CCS sent legal notice to two secretaries of different ministries and owners of two companies on 6 May.

“As they took no steps even after receiving the legal notice, we filed the writ petition,” the lawyer said.