Cabinet gives nod to draft road transport amendment act

The cabinet on Wednesday approved in principle the draft of Road Transport (Amendment) Act, 2024, reducing penalty, mostly fines, for a good number of offences as well as making offences under two additional clauses as bailable.

The approval came at a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office in Dhaka city.

“The penalties for offences in 12 clauses have been changed in the proposed law,” said Cabinet Secretary Md Mahbub Hossain while briefing reporters at Bangladesh Secretariat.

Besides, crimes under two more clauses (84 and 98), which are now non-bailable, have been made bailable offences, reducing the number of clauses with non-bailable crime to one (105), Mahbub said.

The existing Road Transport Act 2018 is being amended in line with the recommendations by the National Road Safety Council, he added.

According to the draft law, crimes related to serious injuries or killing (under the clause 105) by a running motor vehicle would be treated as non-bailable offences.

The crimes for violation of directives over technical specification and arrangement (under the Clause-84) and the harms caused to lives and properties through fast driving, overloading, risky overtaking or uncontrolled driving 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 also cleared the draft of International Mother Language Institute (Amendment) Act, 2024 in a bid to create a trust fund to conduct researches on near-extinct mother tongues and movements related to Bengali or other languages in the world.

Besides, the cabinet 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.

“In the draft laws, no major change was brought. The posts of secretary (chief executive of these organisations) were renamed as executive director,” said the cabinet secretary.