A new bill titled The Village Court (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was placed in Parliament on Wednesday amid disagreement of a BNP lawmaker providing for arbitration at the village level to reduce the number of cases in courts.Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury was presided over the sitting. State Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak, on behalf of LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam, placed the bill in the House.
Later the bill was sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of LGRD for further scrutiny and to submit its report within three weeks.
Opposing the bill, BNP lawmaker Ashraf Uddin Nizan expressed his apprehension that the proposed law might increase corruption at village level and also the number of touts.
He suggested sending the bill back for further discussion and to elicit public opinion.
State Minister for LGRD and Cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak said that the law would reduce the burdens of courts which have to deal with huge numbers of cases.
He said it would bring back the tradition of social arbitration to deal with social problems.
The state minister also invited the BNP MP to see for himself the successes of the village court activities any day.
The bill provides for settling frictions between rivals, cases of theft, damage of crops, harming of cattle, breach of monetary deals, poisoning of fish in ponds among others.
According to the proposed bill, the village court would also be given the power to fine an accused maximum of Tk 75,000, up from existing Tk 25,000, and realise the penalty.
The bill has a provision to dispose of a petition against any village court verdict within 30 working days.
The proposed law has kept the provision of slapping a fine of Tk 2,000 for filing any false case.
According to the proposed bill, the fine to be paid by an offender for contempt of village court or non-compliance with its order would be increased to Tk 1,000 from Tk 500.
(Staff Reporter)
