Judge shortage slows down Supreme Court divisions

Although the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court faces a shortage of judges, there is apparently no move from the authorities concerned for appointing new judges anytime soon.

Five judges have retired at different times in the last several years, but the appointment of judges to the top court was not made in accordance with the vacancies, leading to the crisis, said court sources.

The apex court now has six sitting judges. Of them, Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Abu Bakar Siddiquee will retire on December 31 and July 29 this year respectively.

The crisis is causing a backlog of cases at the apex court as the rate of case disposal decreased recently, said the court sources.

The president gave the last appointment on September 2, 2020 when two High Court judges -- Justice Tariq ul Hakim and Justice Obaidul Hassan -- were promoted to the Appellate Division. However, Justice Tariq retired 12 days after his promotion.

The High Court Division has also been facing a similar shortage of judges.

With an inadequate number of appointments against the number of those retiring, the HC has now 92 judges. The number was 101 in June 2012.

Despite such a crisis, the government has no plan to appoint new judges to the Appellate and High Court Divisions right now.

"I know that a few judges have retired. But, there is no plan to appoint new judges at this moment. Let's see what happens," Law Minister Anisul Huq told The Daily Star last week.

He did not elaborate any further.

If new judges are not appointed to the apex court soon, the number of pending cases may go up further, said court sources.

Some 23,617 cases were pending with the Appellate Division after 6,303 were disposed of from January 1 till December 31, 2019 whereas 20,442 were pending with this court after 6,695 were disposed of during the same period of time from January 1 to December 31, 2018, according to an annual SC report.

The SC has not yet prepared the report on pending cases for the year 2020, said SC spokesman Mohammad Saifur Rahman.

The Appellate Division disposed of around 8,000 cases through virtual hearings during the Covid-19 pandemic since July last year till date, he told The Daily Star on March 12.

Replying to a question, Saifur said he does not know whether the chief justice has recommended the president to appoint new judges for the apex court.

As many as 4,89,068 cases were pending with the HC after 1,35,275 were disposed of till December 31, 2019, according to the SC report. The number of cases pending from January 1, 2018 till December 31 that year was 5,16,652 after 49,035 were adjudicated during the period.

Contacted, SC lawyer and editor of Dhaka Law Reports Khurshid Alam Khan said the rate of case disposal by the Appellate Division has reduced due to a shortage of judges.

"We hope the president will appoint new judges to the apex court soon to expedite case disposal rate," he said.

There are two separate benches of the Appellate Division for hearing and disposing of the appeals and petitions filed challenging the HC verdicts and orders.

A three-judge bench is led by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain while Justice Imman Ali is leading a three member-bench.

On July 9, 2009, the then president raised the number of judges at the Appellate Division from seven to 11 prior to disposing of some important cases on the assassination of Bangabandhu and fifth amendment to the constitution, among others.