aw defines all aspects of social and business practices. In the changing context of liberalisation and globalisation of the Bangladeshi society and economy, law has become even more central in regulating and fostering safer living, improvement in professional forum, social and economic growth and overall advancement of the nation. When I had first embarked upon my practice as a lawyer in Bangladesh, too often I found myself striving to find a compact, organized source of legal information on a particular topic and too often, I found none. There is no doubt that effective research is one of the biggest tools a lawyer can possess, but ‘effective’ need not always mean elaborate and comprehensive. On the contrary, it might often mean succinct and to the point. As such, my realization of the need for a concise compilation of the most commonly applied laws in Bangladesh must have served as the first strand of inspiration that urged me to compile my numerous write-ups in The Daily Star to take the form of this book.

In the preparation of this book, I have compiled my write-ups that The Daily Star has been publishing mainly in the ‘Your Advocate’ column of their popular ‘Law & Our Rights’ page for the last one decade. As such, the book serves as a direct reflection of the legal issues that general people face and, as real as it can be, the book encompasses a wide range of areas including family matters, corporate and professional matters, property and inheritance issues, criminal matters etc. Many of the write-ups are based on very contemporary issues including, for example, social networking.

I shall attribute the second strand of my inspiration to the numerous individuals I have come across who have shown genuine interest in the law despite of not belonging to a legal background by profession or education. I noticed that people are interested to know about, for instance, the procedures for inter-religion marriage, divorce, adoption, or even the procedures for setting up a company or buying a piece of land. Of the late, with the rise in the digital advancement in Bangladesh, 1 have perceived an interesting shift in the people’s inquisition towards issues like digital crimes, identity theft, harassment and other forms of wrongdoings that the psychedelic world of internet is capable of hosting. Research attempts often lead the people to a plethora of legal jargons that only cater to legal experts. Having made that observation, I believe that acquiring knowledge is power, but the true wisdom lies in sharing it. I now intend this book to be a basic guidance to all readers in all walks of life; for this book to be able to serve as an effective tool of awareness of the laws, and of our basic rights. In my mind’s eye, writing this book is the embodiment of a miniature step forward in attempting to ensure that the citizens of Bangladesh are not completely ignorant of the law, i.e. in other words ‘separated from law and justice’ as the quote states.

These strands inspiration, combined with the support and motivation from people spoken about in my Acknowledgment section, enabled me to push through my busy lawyerly schedule, to extract some time out to prepare pro-bono opinions and then to congregate them for this book. I look forward to the circulation of this book as much as possible, especially to the youth and students. Through this book the readers can sharpen their understandings of the legal principles learnt through practical experiences, demonstrations and applications. I believe this piece of work will help the young generation to regain trust in the legal system. As I continue to write, I expect to be able to publish supplements to this book and expect an expansion to the horizon of opinions. I expect that all readers will hand interest in these pages, many will be surprised, and some may be saddened, some amused and others angered. The readers may even feel the lack of laws and legal attention in some areas. All in all, it is hoped that the compilation will be amongst the readers’ favourites.

Even though the writes-ups have been published throughout the last decade, I have certainly updated them for this publication and the laws are updated as of end of May 2018. I shall consider all my efforts to have been absolutely worthwhile every time a reader finds some guidance in my writing.