Commendable
Judicial magistrates of the district have set a record in disposing of cases and hearing witness testimonies in a year when around 30 lakh cases are pending with courts across the country.
They have disposed of 18,848 cases and heard around 14,000 witness testimonies last year thanks to their sincerity in discharging duties, proper use of court time and hearing all the cases according to the rules of business, insiders say.
The achievement came despite some setbacks, including shortage of magistrates, courtrooms, workforce, and infrastructure.
These were revealed at a press briefing held at the conference room of the chief judicial magistrate yesterday.
Even though in 2016 the filing of the cases was the highest in nine years, the lower courts were able to set the record with a low number of magistrates.
The numbers of pending cases came down to 26,401 at the end of the year.
After separation of the judiciary from the executive in 2007, the lower courts led by judicial magistrates started functioning in Tangail in 2008 with 21,295 pending cases.
As the disposal rate was low compared to filing of cases, the number of pending cases rose to 29,895 at the end of 2015.
Posts of three magistrates have been vacant for one year in the district while two other magistrates have been on training for the last six months.
However, the five serving magistrates, led by the chief judicial magistrate, have been able to dispose of the large number of cases.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Khaleda Yasmin, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Hamidul Islam and senior judicial magistrates Abdullah Al Masum, Sheikh Samidul Islam, Anjan Kanti Das and Rupon Kumar were present at the press conference.
Earlier in the day, the chief judicial magistrate expressed her hope that they would dispose of more cases in 2017 at a police-magistrates conference.
Contacted, Additional Registrar of the High Court Sabbir Faiz said it was really commendable when the case disposal rate is higher than the rate of case filing.
"If this continues, the case backlog will come down and the sufferings of justice-seekers will reduce," he added.
He could not instantly say if other distircts have such a high disposal rate, but added the rate of disposal has cerainly increased in recent years.
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