Recruitment of Judges: Delays result in cases piling up
Shortage of judges at the Supreme Court and other courts across the country is getting worse and creating a huge backlog of cases due to recruitment delays.
More than four lakh cases have been pending with the High Court, which currently has only 89 judges. Of them, three are currently serving as the judges of the International Crimes Tribunal to deal with war crimes cases.
Nine judges of the Appellate Division have been dealing with around 13,119 cases. Two of them are scheduled to go on retirement this year.
The lower courts have only 1,268 judges to deal with more than 27 lakh pending cases. At least 387 of 1,655 approved posts of such judges are vacant.
Considering the situation, Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha has advised the government to appoint eight additional judges to the HC. He also stressed the need for doubling the number of lower court judges through fresh appointments.
On December 24, the chief justice told the National Judicial Conference, 2016 held at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka that he had to face difficulties in constituting HC benches as four of its judges were ill.
Justice SK Sinha added seven of the HC judges would go on retirement in 2017 and then he would have to face more difficulties while forming the benches.
“I advised the government to appoint eight additional judges to the High Court in August 2016 after a long discussion with the law minister. On mutual consent, a recommendation was sent to the government for appointing the judges, but the process was yet to see the light of day in four months,” he said.
Justice SK Sinha added it was impossible for only 1,268 lower court judges to dispose of more than 27 lakh pending cases, as new cases are being filed every day.
“For this relevant reason, appointments should be made quickly in the vacant posts of lower court judges. Recruitment of lower court judges is delayed as the law ministry does not give requisition to that end in time.
“I firmly believe the difference between the rates of filing and disposal of cases would reduce if the existing number of judges doubled,” the chief justice observed.
Asked about the chief justice's statement on appointing new judges to the HC, Law Minister Anisul Huq on December 29 refused to make any comment.
The ministry has meanwhile asked the Bangladesh Judicial Service Commission to select candidates through holding relevant tests for appointing 150 new judges for the lower courts.
BJSC Secretary Paresh Chandra Sharma told The Daily Star on December 28 that the commission would start the process for selecting 150 candidates through holding tests, as per the ministry's requisition. He said viva voce of 567 candidates, who were selected in a written examination, was going on.
The ongoing viva voce would be completed on January 23, he said.
According to a latest SC study, 414,035 cases were pending with the HC as of September 30, 2016. It settled 8,449 cases from July 1 to September 30, 2016.
Earlier, the HC disposed of 37,753 cases from January 1 to December 31, 2015, and the number of pending cases stood at 394,225 then, said another SC study.
The courts across the country disposed of 3.25 lakh cases from July 1 to September 30, 2016, but 3.47 lakh new cases were filed during that time.
After the disposals of cases, 31,39,275 cases were pending with courts across the country, including the Appellate and the HC divisions, as of September 30, 2016, according to the SC study published in October last year.
The number of cases pending with the Appellate Division was 13,119 as of September 30.
The Appellate Division disposed of 2,368 cases and the lower courts settled 314,334 cases between July 1 and September 30.