The pending land survey cases
The apex
court had also given its consent but due to the unanticipated death of the justice, the appeal tribunal did not see the light of the day
Some 2.6 lakh land survey cases are still pending before land survey tribunals (LSTs) across the country despite the issuance of a government gazette some five years ago, according to a piece of news front-paged in this newspaper yesterday. Unquestionably, the stated deadlock is causing immense suffering for thousands of litigants as they are not getting justice for good many years now. There were less than 2 lakh cases before the LSTs in 2015. The number dreadfully stood at 2,62,164 up untill March this year.
The point however is, the issue of all other pending cases including disputed land cases is not a new dilemma in Bangladesh, but what we fail to comprehend is that how could our successive governments repeatedly fail to put an end to it? Also, how could a crucial government gazette in this regard have been neglected for as long as five years?
After issuing the said gazette, the law ministry is reported to have sent a letter to the Supreme Court (SC), seeking its consultation to appoint a Justice in the appeal tribunal. The apex court had also given its consent but due to the unanticipated death of the justice, the appeal tribunal did not see the light of the day. We dont expect accidents, absence or unforeseen deaths to anyhow seriously block the operational flow of such important government and legal matters since they cause immense suffering to the public.
That said, the problem is the governments bureaucratic mechanism for ensuring quick and proper implementation of its official instructions is not working, at least on the topic of resolving age-old plied up land disputes. Underscoring the gravity of the situation, we call the government to right away address this mounting predicament the soonest. Furthermore, if the state is lacking legal resources in doing so then the goal should be to focus more on capacity building.
As the government did not form the appeal tribunal, in the light of a suo moto issued by the High Court bench in 2015, so a ruling was issued by the HC asking why it should not be directed to form an appeal tribunal in accordance with the law. The law and land secretaries had been made respondents to reply to the rule within four weeks. But they are yet to reply. Here the government is well advised to form an appeal tribunal for the greater interest of the litigants and formulate rules in this regard so that the litigants get justice quickly.
