Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain on Sunday expressed concern over the backlog of cases at the apex court, calling the situation ‘alarming’. “The situation is critical . . . things cannot go on this way,” he said while hearing a case at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, reports BSS. Hossain said the number of pending cases was so enormous that it made it difficult to make rooms at the Supreme Court building to stockpile the files.
The chief justice made the nearly identical comments for the second consecutive day while officials concerned said around 5.25 lakh of cases were currently pending at the Supreme Court alone, whereas the figure was just 25,000 in 1982. “I am almost embarrassed seeing the report. So many cases!,” he commented on Saturday while reviewing an audit report on stockpile of pending cases and judiciary’s infrastructure at Supreme Court Auditorium.
Hossain said he decided to sit with “all my colleagues (judges) of the Supreme Court and tell them, what you would do at this situation”. He stated unless the matters of anticipatory bails were disposed of regularly, the number of cases would have crossed a million by now. Hossain emphasized on increasing the number of judges, infrastructural development and proper management to ease backlog of cases and ensure justice for the justice seekers.
