Family court law draft gets cabinet nod

The cabinet on Sunday approved the draft of the Family Court Act, 2022 aiming to replace a military-regime ordinance with some minor changes.

The approval came at the regular meeting of the cabinet held at the Cabinet Division with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. She joined at the meeting virtually from Ganabhaban.

After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam at a press briefing said, “The draft law was placed in the meeting in order to replace the Family Court Ordinance 1985 as per the directives of the High Court.”

He said there is no major change in the proposed Family Court Act, 2022. There will be a total of 31 sections of the new law.

He said, “The government can consider not only the court of district judges but also other courts equivalent to the district judge’s courtas appellate courts for such cases as per the proposed law.”

“The fee of for filing case increased from Tk 50 to Tk 200. However, the increased fee is also a poor amount,” he said,

“The fee was not increased much considering the fact that in many cases the helpless girls came to court to file a case,” he added

The cabinet also approved a proposed agreement to be signed between Bangladesh and Brazil immediately so that the diplomats and officials of the two countries can visit each other’s countries with just on-arrival visas.

Anwarul also said the draft of the Bangladesh Dairy Development Board Act, 2022 was placed in the meeting aiming to ensure the quality of dairy milk through providing technical support and cooling storage facilities to the farmers for proper preservation of improved feeds for the animals.

But, the draft law was sent back with some observations to assess whether there is any duplication of other related laws through consultation of all stakeholders within the next two months, said the cabinet secretary.

Anwarul Islam, replying to a question, said the prime minister in another programme gave two precise instructions to tackle traffic congestions as there would be an influx of transports towards Dhaka following the opening of Padma Bridge.

The prime minister directed the authorities concerned to implement the East West Elevated Expressway (EWEE) immediately proposed in the Dhaka Strategic Transport Plan so that no transport (with other destinations) can enter Dhaka city, he said.

The EWEE project will link Chattogram and the southern parts of Bangladesh to the north and west of the country. Eventually the route will form part of a ring road around Dhaka.

The prime minister also called for expediting the process for the construction of 4-5 wholesale kitchen markets outside Dhaka city instead of the one at Karwan Bazar as the supply of kitchen items might go up further, he said.