Assigning assistant public prosecutors backfired, alarming fall in case resolution: Law Commission

The Law Commission says appointment of assistant public prosecutors who replaced court sub-inspectors to speed things up in judicial magistrates courts has boomeranged.

It made the observation in a report handed on Tuesday to the parliamentary standing committee on the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. 

It blamed the failure of the APPs to carry out their duties for the alarming fall of case resolutions, “In most of the courts, the APPs are absent regularly or do not show interest in running the cases. 

“Witnesses who appear at court are sent back. So the rate of case resolutions has fallen.”

Chairman of the committee, Suranjit Sengupta, said he will be sitting with the related parties on Sep 13 over the findings of the Law Commission, headed by former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque.

   
“We will sit with all Bars including the Bar Council. We need to reach a consensus on how to cut down the case backlog. If it does not work, we will sit again.”

The senior Awami League MP added short, medium and long-term plans needed to be taken to clear the logjam. 

In the report, the commission pointed out that in the US, there is one judge for every 10,000 people while India has one for 67,000 people. But, Bangladesh has one judge for a whopping 152,000 people. 

Of the 1,655 posts of judges, 457 are vacant. There are three million cases pending at the courts and the number is rising. 

The Law Commission warned, “It is impossible to resolve such a large number of cases with only 1500 judges. If quick steps are not taken, the judicial system will collapse.”

It pointed out that the delay in resolution of the cases was encouraging criminals. 

According to the commission, one judge per 40,000 people would be the ideal for handling such huge caseloads. With population of 160 million, that would require 4,000 judges. 

However, the commission suggested appointing at least 2,400 judges for now. 

It also submitted its findings before making suggestions on how to cut down number of pending cases at the courts.