TRW Insight / Bangladesh
Bangladesh has no directly enforceable right to health, but the High Court Division protects health through the right to life. Petitions on emergency care, hospitals, COVID-19, drug prices and medical negligence show both the power of the jurisdiction and its limits on appeal.
Right to health writ in Bangladesh: the 2026 framework
A right to health writ is a petition under Article 102 of the Constitution asking the High Court Division to enforce the state's duties on medical care and public health, usually by reading them into the fundamental right to life. Bangladesh has no free-standing, enforceable right to health in its Constitution, yet the High Court Division has used the right to life to approve binding emergency-care guidelines, close unlicensed hospitals, supervise COVID-19 treatment, order investigations into deaths in private hospitals, and test the legality of drug-pricing decisions. In 2026, that jurisdiction is again in the headlines because of litigation over the essential drugs list.
This guide explains the constitutional basis, the main categories of health petitions, the leading orders on emergency treatment, hospitals, COVID-19, drug prices and medical negligence compensation, the limits the Appellate Division has drawn, and the practical steps for patients, families, rights groups and healthcare providers.
Summary: Articles 15 and 18 make medical care and public health duties of the state but are not directly enforceable. The High Court Division bridges the gap through the right to life in Articles 31 and 32, which it reads to include protection of health. Petitions have produced emergency-care guidelines, hospital closures, COVID-19 directions and interim compensation orders, but the Appellate Division has repeatedly stayed directions it considered to reach too far into executive management or private liability.
Key point: Interim compensation ordered against a private hospital in a writ is vulnerable on appeal. Families should run the writ alongside a criminal complaint and a civil or consumer claim, rather than relying on the writ alone to secure payment.
At a glance
Constitutional basis
Articles 15 and 18 set the policy duty; Articles 31 and 32 make health protection enforceable through the right to life.
Emergency care
A 2018 judgment made emergency-care and Good Samaritan guidelines binding until Parliament legislates.
COVID-19 orders
In June 2020 the High Court Division issued ten directions on treatment; seven were stayed the next day.
Negligence and compensation
Petitions after hospital deaths have produced investigations, interim compensation orders and one Tk 50 lakh settlement.
Drug prices in 2026
A January 2026 rule challenged the essential drugs taskforce; in August the cabinet scrapped the 2026 list and pricing method.
Table of Contents
Right to health writ in Bangladesh: the 2026 framework
The Constitution places health in Part II, among the fundamental principles of state policy. Articles 15 and 18 direct the state to secure basic necessities, including medical care, and to improve public health and nutrition, but Article 8(2) provides that those principles are not judicially enforceable.[12] A petitioner therefore cannot simply plead that the state has failed to deliver adequate healthcare and ask the court to enforce Article 18.
The route instead runs through Part III. Article 31 guarantees protection of law and Article 32 protects life and personal liberty, and both are enforceable under Article 102(1). The leading statement remains Dr Mohiuddin Farooque v Government of Bangladesh (1996) 48 DLR 438, where the High Court Division held that the right to life includes the protection of health and normal longevity, and that while the Article 18 duty cannot itself be enforced, the right to life that embraces health protection can.[1] Every right to health writ since has built on that move.
Who the petition targets
Respondents are usually the Health Services Division of the Ministry of Health, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) and, depending on the facts, the police, city corporations or the hospital concerned. Private hospitals are not ordinarily "persons performing functions in connection with the affairs of the Republic", but they are routinely added as respondents so that directions to regulators can bite and, in negligence cases, so that interim payment can be sought.
Why plead both parts of the Constitution
Pleading Articles 15 and 18 alongside Articles 31 and 32 is not decoration. The policy articles define the content of the state's obligation; the rights articles make the obligation justiciable. Petitions that rely on Part II alone invite a preliminary objection that the claim is non-justiciable.
Categories of health petitions
Health litigation in the High Court Division falls into five broad groups, each with its own evidential demands.
- Access to emergency treatment: refusal of care to accident victims or critically ill patients.
- Hospital and clinic regulation: unlicensed facilities, overcharging and failure of DGHS oversight.
- Public health emergencies: COVID-19 treatment, oxygen supply and ICU management.
- Medicines: drug pricing, the essential drugs list and quality control.
- Medical negligence: deaths or injuries in hospitals, with prayers for investigation and compensation.
Our separate guides on food safety writs and medical negligence in Bangladesh cover the adjacent areas of contaminated food and private negligence claims.
Emergency treatment: the Good Samaritan guidelines
The clearest example of a right to health writ producing durable, system-wide change is Syed Saifuddin Kamal and another v Bangladesh, Writ Petition No. 1509 of 2016, reported at 13 SCOB [2020] HCD 10. In January 2016 the first petitioner took a road accident victim to private hospitals in Gulshan, where he was refused treatment and an ambulance; the victim was declared dead on arrival at a public hospital. The petitioner and BLAST challenged the failure of hospitals to provide emergency care, invoking Articles 27, 31 and 32, and a Rule was issued on 10 February 2016.[2]
What the court ordered
In its judgment of 8 August 2018, a bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Farid Ahmed noted the absence of any legal framework for emergency medical services or for protecting bystanders who help. It approved the Emergency Medical Services for Road Accident Victims and Protection of Good Samaritans Guidelines 2018, declared them binding by judicial sanction until legislation is enacted, directed the health ministry to publish and disseminate them, and required infrastructure targets and ambulance directives within six months.[2]
Why the case matters
The judgment shows the most effective form of relief in this jurisdiction: guidelines that fill a legislative vacuum, drafted with the respondents' participation and backed by the court's authority. Commentators in 2026 continue to argue for an express constitutional right to emergency healthcare, and the Constitution Reform Commission has proposed a single enforceable charter of rights that would include it, subject to progressive realisation for resource-intensive rights.[12]
Hospitals, clinics and the COVID-19 orders
Most hospital petitions ask the court to make the DGHS enforce licensing law against unlicensed or unsafe facilities, and to report on compliance. During the pandemic the same tools were used on a much larger scale.
The June 2020 directions
Acting on public interest petitions, a virtual bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim on 15 June 2020 declared that hospitals cannot deny treatment to any patient, whether infected with COVID-19 or not, and that denial of treatment would be a criminal offence. It directed the government to ensure that health ministry instructions were followed in public and private hospitals, required reports from the Health Services Division and DGHS, ordered a monitoring cell for private hospitals and ICU charges, and directed the authorities to fix oxygen cylinder prices.[3]
The Appellate Division's response
The next day, on an application by the health ministry and DGHS, the chamber judge of the Appellate Division, Justice Mohammad Nuruzzaman, stayed seven of the ten directions, including those on disciplinary action, lists of large private hospitals and ICU accountability.[4] The state had argued that the court could not interfere with executive functions in that way and that no victim had filed the petition; the petitioners replied that patients turned away could not realistically come to court themselves. Directions requiring a compliance report, monitoring of ICU overcharging and the fixing of oxygen prices survived.[4]
The episode marks the boundary of the jurisdiction. Directions that require regulators to apply their own instructions and report back are usually sustained. Directions that restructure hospital management or assign individual liability are likely to be stayed.
Medical negligence and compensation
The most emotive right to health writ petitions follow deaths in private hospitals. They typically seek an independent inquiry, regulatory action against the facility and compensation for the family.
Settlement and payment
In Writ Petition No. 7574 of 2011, filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh after the death of Dr Mridul Kanti at Lab Aid Hospital, the High Court Division directed the authorities to ensure better and safe treatment for patients, and the hospital paid the family Tk 50 lakh.[5] The case shows that a writ can create the conditions for settlement even where the court does not itself fix damages.
Interim compensation and the United Hospital fire
After five people died in a fire at United Hospital's COVID-19 isolation unit in May 2020, the families of four victims went to the High Court Division. It directed the hospital to pay Tk 30 lakh to each family on 14 July 2020 and again in January 2021, but the Appellate Division's chamber judge stayed the order on 17 January 2021; the fifth family settled out of court.[6] Interim compensation against a private hospital, ordered before liability is tried, is the kind of relief the Appellate Division is most willing to suspend.
Investigation orders: Ayan and Raahib
In January 2024, after five-year-old Ayan died following circumcision under general anaesthesia at United Medical College Hospital, a bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Md Atabullah directed the DGHS to investigate and report within seven days, issued a rule asking why the hospital should not pay Tk 5 crore for what it described as serious medical negligence, and ordered a list of unlicensed and unregistered hospitals nationwide within a month.[7] In March 2024 a separate writ over the death of Raahib Reza at Labaid Hospital in Dhanmondi produced a rule and an investigation order on the day of filing, with the inquiry report submitted in September 2024.[8]
Parallel remedies
A right to health writ does not displace private law. Section 304A of the Penal Code punishes causing death by negligence with up to five years' imprisonment, and section 53 of the Consumer Rights Protection Act 2009 penalises negligence by a service provider that harms a service receiver's life or health.[8] Bangladesh still has no codified medical negligence tort statute, which is one reason families turn to the writ jurisdiction. Our analysis of compensation in writ petitions explains how the court approaches constitutional tort awards more generally.
Drug prices and the essential drugs list
Medicine pricing has become the most commercially significant area of health litigation.
The 2024 pricing petition
In April 2024 the Consumers Association of Bangladesh petitioned the High Court Division over arbitrary drug pricing. It sought rules asking why the inaction of the Health Services Division and the DGDA in fixing drug prices should not be declared illegal, directions to fix prices once rules under section 76 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023 are framed, and an interim judicial guideline on pricing method, relying on sections 30 and 76 of that Act.[9]
The 2026 essential drugs litigation
On 8 January 2026 the interim government added 135 medicines to the essential drugs list, bringing it to 295. On 22 January 2026 a bench of Justice Ahmed Sohel and Justice Fatema Anwar, on a petition by the secretary of the Bangladesh Unani Medical Association, issued a rule asking why the 18-member taskforce that prepared the list should not be declared illegal for excluding Ayurvedic, Unani, homeopathic, herbal and other stakeholders, with reference to section 13 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023.[10]
On 3 August 2026 the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman scrapped the Essential Drugs List 2026 and the Drug Price Determination Method 2026, citing the failure to consult the National Drug Advisory Council as the 2023 Act requires. The 1994 list and its pricing mechanism remain in force pending a revised list, and the writ challenging the 2026 instruments was reported as still pending.[11] For manufacturers, the episode is a reminder that procedural defects in health regulation are both litigable and politically consequential. TRW's pharmaceutical and healthcare practice advises on DGDA pricing and registration.
Standing and procedure
Health petitions are overwhelmingly filed in the public interest by lawyers, rights organisations and consumer bodies such as BLAST, HRPB and the Consumers Association of Bangladesh.[2] [5] [9] The state's standard objection, that no victim has come to court, was rejected by the High Court Division in 2020 but was part of the argument that persuaded the Appellate Division to stay most of the COVID-19 directions.[4] Adding the patient or family as a co-petitioner, as in the Ayan case, strengthens standing and the claim for individual relief.[7]
Procedure follows the ordinary writ sequence described in our guide to the writ petition in Bangladesh: a demand for justice, filing with supporting affidavit and documents, a motion hearing at which the bench may issue a Rule and interim directions, an affidavit-in-opposition, and final hearing.
Health Services Division
Policy and supervisory ministry named as the lead respondent in most health petitions.
Directorate General of Health Services
Licenses and monitors hospitals and clinics and conducts inquiries ordered by the court.
Directorate General of Drug Administration
Regulates drug registration and pricing under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023.
National Drug Advisory Council
Must be consulted before the essential drugs list is formulated.
BLAST, HRPB and the Consumers Association of Bangladesh
Public interest petitioners behind several leading health cases.
Step-by-step: building a right to health writ
The following sequence reflects how we prepare a health petition for hearing.
Secure the records
Obtain admission papers, treatment notes, bills, death certificates and any CCTV or witness accounts before they are lost or altered.
Identify the duty-holders
Name the Health Services Division, DGHS, DGDA or other regulator, plus the hospital, and the specific duty each failed to perform.
Serve a demand for justice
Write to the regulator seeking inquiry or action within a short deadline, so that inaction is documented.
Choose the petitioners
Combine the patient or family with an experienced public interest petitioner where systemic relief is sought.
Frame deliverable prayers
Ask for investigation, licensing enforcement, guidelines and compliance reports; seek compensation as a separate, reasoned prayer.
Move for a Rule and interim directions
Press for an urgent inquiry order at the first hearing while evidence is fresh.
Run parallel remedies
File the criminal complaint and preserve civil or consumer claims so that a stay of the writ does not leave the family without a remedy.
Speed matters most in negligence cases. Medical records can be altered or lost, and the court's willingness to order an independent inquiry is greatest when the petition is filed promptly after the event.
Limits of the right to health writ
The cases show a consistent set of boundaries. Knowing them in advance shapes both the prayers a petitioner asks for and the response a respondent files.
Resources and policy choices
The court will not decide how much the state spends on health or which hospitals it builds. The 2018 emergency-care judgment is instructive: rather than ordering new facilities, it required the ministry to identify infrastructure and manpower needs and set targets within six months.[2] Prayers framed as planning, reporting and compliance obligations are far more likely to survive than prayers demanding a specific budget or service.
Executive management
Directions that place the court in the position of running the health system are vulnerable. The 2020 stay of seven COVID-19 directions turned on precisely that objection.[4] Directions requiring the DGHS to enforce its own instructions, monitor charges and report back are on firmer ground.
Individual liability
A right to health writ is a public law remedy. It can establish regulatory failure and secure an independent inquiry, but it is not a trial of a doctor's or hospital's civil liability. Where the court has ordered a private hospital to make interim payment before liability is tested, the Appellate Division has stayed the order.[6] A DGHS inquiry report obtained through the writ is often more valuable to a family than the interim award itself, because it supplies the evidence for the criminal and civil claims that follow.
Right to health writ versus other remedies
The table below compares the writ with the other routes available after harm in a hospital or a regulatory failure. On a phone, scroll it sideways.
| Route | Legal basis | Target | Typical outcome | Key point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Right to health writ | Constitution, Arts 31, 32 and 102 | Regulators, sometimes hospitals | Inquiry, guidelines, licensing enforcement, interim payment | Interim compensation often stayed |
| Criminal complaint | Penal Code, s 304A | Doctor or hospital staff | Prosecution for death by negligence | Up to five years' imprisonment |
| Consumer complaint | Consumer Rights Protection Act 2009, s 53 | Service provider | Fine or imprisonment | Covers negligent services |
| Civil suit for damages | Law of tort | Hospital and doctors | Damages after trial | Slow but fully adjudicated |
| Regulatory complaint | Licensing and professional rules | Hospital or practitioner | Licence action or discipline | Useful evidence for later claims |
What to watch in 2026
Three developments will shape this jurisdiction. First, the revised essential drugs list and pricing method, to be prepared after consultation with the National Drug Advisory Council, will almost certainly be tested in court.[11] Second, any constitutional reform that adopts an enforceable right to emergency healthcare would convert much of today's indirect reasoning into direct enforcement.[12] Third, the pressure for a medical negligence statute continues to grow, and until it arrives the writ court will remain a first port of call for families.[8]
For patients and families, the priority is to secure records and move quickly. For hospitals and manufacturers, it is to document compliance and respond to rules promptly. TRW's constitutional and writ litigation practice acts on both sides of health petitions, and our private healthcare facility licensing team advises providers on the regulatory exposure behind them.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a constitutional right to health in Bangladesh?
What is a right to health writ?
It is an Article 102 petition asking the High Court Division to direct health regulators, and sometimes hospitals, to act where failure threatens life or health, for example by enforcing licensing law, ensuring emergency treatment or investigating a hospital death.
Can a private hospital refuse emergency treatment?
Can the High Court order a hospital to pay compensation?
It has done so on an interim basis, for example Tk 30 lakh per family after the United Hospital fire, but the Appellate Division stayed that order.[6] Compensation is more secure when pursued alongside civil and criminal remedies.
What happened to the 2020 COVID-19 treatment directions?
The Appellate Division's chamber judge stayed seven of the ten directions on 16 June 2020, leaving those on compliance reporting, ICU overcharging and oxygen prices in force.[4]
Who can file a health-related writ?
Affected patients and families, and public-spirited lawyers or organisations in the public interest. Joining the victim's family as a petitioner strengthens standing.[7]
Is medical negligence a crime in Bangladesh?
Causing death by negligence is an offence under section 304A of the Penal Code, and section 53 of the Consumer Rights Protection Act 2009 covers negligent service that harms life or health.[8]
Why was the 2026 essential drugs list cancelled?
The cabinet scrapped it on 3 August 2026 because the National Drug Advisory Council had not been consulted as the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023 requires. The 1994 list remains in force for now.[11]
Can drug prices be challenged in the High Court?
How quickly should a health writ be filed after a hospital death?
As soon as records are secured. In the Ayan case the writ was filed two days after the child died, and the court ordered a DGHS investigation at the first hearing.[7]
Source register
Primary legal and regulatory sources
Materials checked on 23 October 2026. Confirm the current official text before relying on any provision.
- Global Health and Human Rights Database — Dr Mohiuddin Farooque v Government of Bangladesh (Radioactive Milk Case)
- Supreme Court of Bangladesh — Syed Saifuddin Kamal v Bangladesh, WP 1509 of 2016, 13 SCOB [2020] HCD 10
- Dhaka Tribune, 15 June 2020 — High Court: denying treatment is a criminal offence
- The Business Standard, June 2020 — Appellate Division stays seven of HC's 10 points on health
- Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh — Writ Petition No. 7574 of 2011, death of Mridul Kanti at Lab Aid Hospital
- UNB, 17 January 2021 — United Hospital fire: SC stays HC order to pay Tk 30 lakh each to 4 victims' families
- Prothom Alo English, 15 January 2024 — HC orders investigation into Ayan's death
- The Daily Star (Law & Our Rights), 17 January 2025 — The need for a medical negligence law
- The Financial Express, 29 April 2024 — Arbitrary pricing of drugs: CAB seeks HC intervention
- The Business Standard, 22 January 2026 — HC seeks explanation over legality of essential drugs taskforce formation
- Prothom Alo English, 3 August 2026 — Cabinet scraps essential drugs list and pricing method
- The Daily Star (Law & Our Rights), 18 March 2026 — The right to emergency healthcare
Related TRW assistance
Move from information to a defined next step
TRW acts for patients, families, rights groups, hospitals and manufacturers in health-related writs, DGHS and DGDA disputes and Appellate Division stay applications. Explore our constitutional and writ litigation practice or contact TRW to discuss your matter.
