UNB, Sangsad Bhaban :
The number of pending cases at various courts of the country stood at 35,82,347 as of March this year,Law Minister Anisul Huq told Parliament on Tuesday.
Responding to a tabled written question from ruling party MP elected for the reserved women seat Habiba Rahman Khan, the minister said the number of the cases pending with the country’s higher and lower courts is 35,82,347.
He said, the number of backlog cases at the Appellate Division is 21,813, including 14,023 of civil and 7655 of criminal ones, while the cases of contempt is 135.
The number of unresolved cases at the High Court Division is 5,06,664. Among those, 96,114 cases are of civil, 317,443 of criminal ones and 93,107 are related to other matters.
At lower courts, the number of the unsettled civil cases is 13,28,600 while that of criminal ones is 17,25,270, Anisul Huq told the House.
The minister said, the government has taken steps like increasing the number of judges and resolving courtroom crisis for the quick disposal of the pending cases.
While replying to another question from ruling party MP elected from Dhaka Haji Md Salim, he said there are 59,860 cases pending cases with family courts across the country. He mentioned that the highest number of 5,509 cases is pending with family courts in Dhaka, followed by 4,643 with family courts in Chattogram, 2165 in Mymensingh, 1996 in Rajshahi and 1,898 in Bagura.
The Law Minister said the government is going to establish seven cyber tribunals, 122 additional district and sessions judge courts, 159 joint district judges’ courts, 19 environment courts, and six environment appeal courts to ease the plight of justice-seekers and reduce the number of pending cases at the courts.
It also decided to create 346 judicial magistrates or senior judicial magistrates or metropolitan magistrates for the same purpose.
The Public Administration Ministry and the Finance Ministry have given their consent to set up the seven cyber tribunals while the Public Administration Ministry given its approval to set up chief metropolitan magistrate courts in Gazipur and Rangpur.
A process is also underway to appoint supportive employees in the courts, the minister said.
He said that crisis of courtrooms is one of the hurdles for the quick disposal of cases. “The government is working to accelerate the trial proceedings by resolving the scarcity of courtrooms and optimum of working hours.”
The government, Anisul Huq said, has approved a project to construct a 12-storey building with modern facilities in the Supreme Court. The process to implement the project is going on.
For the lower courts, he said, the government is implementing a project to construct chief judicial magistrate court buildings in 42 districts. The construction of 25 chief judicial magistrate court buildings have been completed where the judicial works are going on and construction works on the rest in 17 districts are underway.
Another process to prepare DPP for the rest of the 22 chief judicial magistrate court buildings is also going on.
The minister mentioned that the government has done the vertical expansion of district judge courts in 28 districts while the preparation of DPP for the rest 36 districts is under process.
The Law Minister said the monitoring cell is working to dispose of the old cases on priority basis under the leadership of a solicitor. Case management committees have been formed in every district.
The government has taken an initiative for the training of lower court judges for bringing dynamism and pace in disposing cases, Anisul Huq said.
A process to send 540 judges to the Western Sydney University of Australia has started and 321 judges have already received training, the minister said.
He said 320 judges received training in National Judicial Academy at Bhupal in India, while 30 in Japan with financial assistance from JICA, 20 judges in China and 14 judges and prosecutors in the USA.
The Judicial Administration Training Institute trained 2,838 judges, 135 GP/PP and 193 court staff from 2014 to 2018. Besides, 59 judges have received training on e-procurement.
“In phases more judges will be given higher training both at home and abroad,” the minister said.
