The High Court has ruled that calling a strike or hartal in protest against a court judgment or order is illegal. It has also directed that legal action be taken against bus owners’ associations and workers’ organisations if they call such a strike or hartal.

The High Court bench comprising Justice Shashanka Shekhar Sarkar and Justice Faisal Hasan Arif delivered the judgment on Sunday after concluding the final hearing of a writ petition.

The judgment was delivered following the final hearing of a writ petition filed in the wake of a transport workers’ strike called after a trial court verdict in a case concerning the deaths of five people, including filmmaker Tareque Masud and Mishuk Munier, the then chief executive officer of ATN News, in a road accident.

Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), a human rights and environmental organisation, filed the writ petition in the public interest in 2017.