A day after Chief Justice (CJ) Syed Mahmud Hossain called for adopting alternative dispute resolution (ADR), now the CJ has expressed concerns over the number of pending cases at the top court, saying case backlog has reached a critical state.
"There is not enough space for keeping files in the Supreme Court, due to the huge number of pending cases. In short, case backlog has reached a critical point," he said on Saturday (Apr 28).
He made the observations at the hearing of a case in front of the four-member bench of the Appellate Division on Sunday.
The Supreme Court's Judicial Reform Committee in conjunction with German Development Co-operation Bangladesh (GIZ) on Saturday presented an audit report relating the resolution of case backlog and the administration of justice.
At the report release event on Saturday, the CJ said, “In the countries like USA, UK, Canada, and Australian, 85 to 90 percent lawsuit is settled through ADR and the rest is disposed of by the court while the scenario is quite opposite in Bangladesh. Smooth implementation of the existing laws’ provisions on ADR is essential to reduce the number of cases.”
"I embrace the report," the chief justice said during Sunday’s hearing.
"I know this cannot continue like this. So, I have taken the decision to sit with all the justices, to come up with a solution to case backlog," English daily the Dhaka Tribune quoted Hossain.
Further developments will be disclosed to the public later, he said.
According to the report, there are 515,000 cases are currently pending the Supreme Court - which was only 25,000 in 1982.
If anticipatory bail had not been disposed of, the number would have crossed 1 million cases, the report adds.