Nearly 3.6 million cases are pending in the different courts across Bangladesh, says Law Minister Anisul Huq.
"As of Mar 31 this year, there are 3,582,347 pending cases in different courts of the country," he told parliament on Tuesday (Jun 18).
Replying to a query from lawmaker Habiba Rahman, the minister said, "The number of cases pending in the lower court stands at as many as 3,053,870 -- 1,328,600 civilian cases and 1,725,270 criminal cases.
"As many as 21,183 cases are pending in the Appellate Division. Of which, 1823 are civil cases, 7655 are criminal cases and 135 are contempt petition.
"There are 506,664 cases are pending in the High Court. Of which, 96,114 are civilian, 317,443 criminal and 93107 area other cases," Huq said.
The minister said the government is working to cut the case backlog to ensure justice to people.
“Various steps, including the recruitment of new judges, infrastructural development and imparting training to judges, have been taken to ease case backlog,” BSS quoted Huq as saying.
The law minister said the amendment of the existing laws is needed to cut case backlog and the amendment of laws is a continuous process.
He said many laws have already been amended and the process continues to bring necessary amendments in some more laws.
Aiming to cut the case backlog across the country, Huq said initiatives are underway to set up seven cyber tribunals in the country, and metropolitan magistrate courts in Gazipur and Rangpur.
He said the government has also taken a step to set up six more women and children repression prevention tribunals in the country.
The law minister said the government recruited six judges in the Appellate Division and 28 judges in the High Court Division of Supreme Court from 2014 to 2018.
During the period, he said, 571 assistant judges were recruited in the associated courts and recruitment process of 99 more assistant judges is now at the final stage.
The government has set up 41 tribunals across the country for speedy trial of women and children repression cases, Huq said.
Besides, he said, seven special tribunals were set up to settle the cases filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009.
A monitoring cell, led by solicitors, is working to resolve the old cases on a priority basis, Huq said.