The InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights: A Study on Bangladesh Compliance the government seized approximately 2.6 million acres of land, affecting almost all Hindus in the country. According to a study, nearly 200,000 Hindu families lost approximately 40,667 acres of land since 2001, despite the annulment of the act in the same year by the then Awami League government.106 In April 2001, parliament passed the Vested Property Return Act, stipulating that land remaining under government control that was seized under the Vested Property Act should be returned to its original owners, provided that the original owners or their heirs remained resident citizens. The law required the government to prepare a list of vested property holdings by October 2001. In 2002, the parliament passed an amendment to the Act that allowed the government unlimited time to return the vested properties and gave control of the properties, including the right to lease them, to local government officials. It is on November 29, 2011 that the Vested Properties Return (Amendment) Bill, 2011 was passed in the parliament with the objective of a smooth return of vested properties to the genuine owners. The proposed bill has provisions to prepare district-wise lists of such vested properties and publish those through gazette notifications within 120 days of the 107 Kahir, Legal Empowerment for the Poor, 43. Ibid, 43–58. 109 M R Anderson, Access to Justice and Legal Process: Making Legal Institutions Responsive to Poor People in LDCs (Sussex: Law and Democracy Development Series, IDS Working Paper No. 178, 2003), 1. 108 87