The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the draft of Road Transport (Amendment) Act, 2024, in principle, reducing penalty mostly financial ones for a good number of offences as well as making offences under two more clauses as bailable ones, including irregularities in driving licence issuance.
The approval was given in the regular weekly Cabinet meeting held at Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas Tejgaon office in Dhaka with the PM in the chair.
After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Mahbub Hossain briefed media at Bangladesh Secretariat.
In the meeting, the cabinet also cleared the drafts of Christian Religious Welfare Trust (Amendment) Act, 2024, Hindu Religious Welfare Trust (Amendment) Act, 2024 and Buddhist Religious Welfare Trust (Amendment) Act, 2024.
The Cabinet Secretary said, "In the three draft laws, no major change was brought. The post of secretary (chief executive) was renamed as executive director."
The Cabinet also cleared the draft of International Mother Language Institute (Amendment) Act, 2024 in a bid to create a trust fund to conduct research on near-extinct mother tongues, movements related to Bengali or other languages in the world.
Regarding the Road Transport (Amendment) Act, he said, "The penalties for offences in 12 clauses have been changed in the proposed law."
Besides, crimes under two more clauses (84 and 98), which are now as non-bailable have been made bailable offences, keeping crimes under only the single clause (105) of the law has been kept as non-bailable one in the draft law, he added.
The existing Road Transport Act 2018 is being amended in line with the recommendations of the National Road Safety Council, he added.
According to the draft law, the crimes related to serious injuries or killing (under the clause 105) of a man caused by motor- vehicle driving would be treated as non-bailable offences.
The crimes for violation of directives related to technical specification and arrangement (under the Clause-84) and the offenses related to loss of lives and properties caused by driving with over-speed, overloading, risky overtaking or without control would be considered as bailable crimes.
The 12 clauses where the penalties have been changed are 69, 70, 71, 80, 81, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92 and 98.
The Cabinet Secretary mentioned that the decision to amend this law was made during the 26th meeting of the National Road Safety Council.
A three-member committee was formed for this purpose, he said, adding that after consulting with stakeholders, the committee proposed these changes, which have received in-principle approval from the cabinet.
He explained that Section 69 of the existing act stipulates a penalty of 2 years imprisonment and a fine of Tk 5 lakh for irregularities related to the preparation of a driving licence.
In the amended law, this penalty is being reduced to Tk3 lakh, he said.
