Max penalty in speedy trial raised to 7yrs
Parliament today passed the ‘The Law and Order Disruption (Speedy Trial) (amendment) Bill, 2018’ raising the jail term to seven years from the existing five years for disrupting law and order situation.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal placed the bill before the House seeking its immediate passage.
The House with Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury in the chair passed the bill by voce votes, rejecting all the amendment proposals put forwarded by the opposition lawmakers.
It took less than 10 minutes to pass the proposal law in the House.
Six Jatiya Party MPs and one independent MP submitted notice to raise amendment against the bill. But only two of them were present in the House to participate in the discussion on the bill.
JP MP Nurul Islam Oamar and Rawshan Ara Mannan urged the Home Minister to withdraw the bill and send it to the committee of eliciting public opinion.
They said the police often misuse the law and punish innocent people.
They also called upon the home minister to take measures so that the law enforcement agencies execute the law in a proper way.
In reply, the home boos rejected their appeal saying Bangladesh’s police are very much efficient and they have been discharging responsibilities efficiently.
According to the bill, anyone responsible for committing crimes disrupting law and order will face minimum two years and maximum seven years of rigorous imprisonment along with fine.
The Home boss in the bill mentioned that it is necessary to increase length of punishment from five to seven years to further improve and keep the country’s overall law and order situation normal.
Besides, he also said increasing of punishment will also make the existing law time befitting.
According to the bill, the trial of some offences disrupting the law-and-order situation like extortion, disrupting traffic movement, vandalism, tender manipulation, giving threats, mugging, terrorising people as well as vandalism of public property and immovable property will come under the purview of the amended law.
Under the proposed law, the government on special power will appoint a first class magistrate for conducting the speedy trial court.
The original Law and Order Disruption (Speedy Trial) Act was first framed in 2002.
In the existing law, the punishment is minimum two years imprisonment and maximum five years imprisonment. Earlier, the cabinet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair nodded the bill.
Comments