Form task forces to keep unfit vehicles off roads across Bangladesh: HC
The High Court Division on Sunday directed the government to form separate taskforce headed by deputy commissioner at each district to monitor and put unregistered and unfit vehicles off the roads.
The court directed the government to form the taskforce comprising of the concerned executive magistrate and representatives of the Road Transport Department and the police.
The directive was issued to the secretaries of the ministries of public administration, home affairs and road transport and bridges to form the taskforces in accordance with the Road Transport Act 2018.
The proposed taskforces were asked to take appropriate legal action including seizing, stopping and dumping unfit and unregistered vehicles.
The court directed the respondents to submit separate compliance reports at the next hearing after three months.
A bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice KM Hafizul Alam issued the directive while hearing a suo motu rule issued on March 27, 2019.
BRTA informed the court that it had no manpower to take action against unregistered and unfit vehicles across the country.
BRTA in a report informed the court that it had identified 4,58,359 vehicles without valid documents.
Out of the vehicles 1, 65,764 renewed their fitness certificates until December 30, 2019.
The BRTA said, therefore, 2,92,595 vehicles were still on the roads without valid fitness documents.
Of the 4,58,359 vehicles without fitness certificates, over 2.61 lakh were in Dhaka division, over 1.19 lakh in Chattogram division, over 26,000 in Rajshahi division, over 6,000 in Rangpur division, over 15,000 in Khulna division, over 44,000 in Sylhet division and over 5,000 in Barishal division, BRTA informed the bench.
On October 23, the HC directed the government to ask refuelling stations not to sell fuel to unfit vehicles as they were mainly responsible for road accidents.
The court had also directed the secretaries of Road Transport and Highways Division and the home ministry, the BRTA’s chairman and the IGP to submit their compliance reports on January 10.
The IGP was also directed to monitor whether or not the refuelling stations were checking fitness certificates before selling fuel.
Lawyers informed the court that the directives were not implemented.
On July 23, the High Court Division gave two months to the owners of unfit vehicles to get the fitness of their vehicles checked.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
