The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday approved a law ministry proposal that sought to relax for one year a specific condition of experience relating to the promotion of additional district judges in order to make smoother the judicial functions of the lower courts across the country. According to Section 4 (1) of the Bangladesh Judicial Service Rules, additional district judges must complete a service period of 15 years, including two years' judicial experience as additional district judge, to be promoted to the post of district judges.

But, the law ministry sent a proposal to the Supreme Court in last month (November) seeking its approval on the law ministry’s decision that additional district judges having 15 years of service record, including two years' experience as additional district judge, or service in an equivalent post and one year judicial experience as additional district judge can be promoted to the position of district judges. In the yesterday’s full court meeting, attended by judges of the Appellate and High Court (HC) Divisions, the Supreme Court gave its approval on the law ministry’s proposal, according to the Supreme Court and law ministry sources.

Earlier in September last year, the Supreme Court (SC) decided to relax the provision for 2-year mandatory judicial experience as additional district judge for their promotion.

At the September meeting attended by judges of the Appellate Division and the High Court (HC) Division, it was decided that additional district judges having 15 years of service record, including two years' experience as additional district judge or in equivalent posts and six months' judicial experience as additional district judge can be promoted to the position of district judges.

Subsequently, the apex court on September 20 sent a letter to the law ministry, requesting it to issue a gazette notification about relaxing the condition relating to the promotion of additional judges for the next one year in compliance with the decision of the full meeting.

According to the SC letter, at least 30 posts of district judges are currently lying vacant. Nineteen district judges will go into retirement by this year, while 24 others will retire by 2017. Besides, the creation of 41 district judge posts for the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal is now at the final stage. Hence, a total of 114 posts of district judge will be vacant by 2017.

The letter also mentioned that a total of 148 additional district judges have been included in a panel for being promoted to the rank of district judge. But many of them do not have the requisite two years of judicial experience as additional district judge as they are working in the administrative section in the judiciary. It will not be possible to promote them in accordance with the current rules due to their lack of judicial experience.

“As a result, many posts of the district judges will continue to remain vacant in the near future,” according to the apex court letter.

In November this year, the law ministry sent a proposal to the Supreme Court seeking its approval to relax the condition in promoting the additional judges.

Meanwhile the law ministry has finalised the names of the 96 judges from among these judges for promotion to the post of district judge to quickly dispose of cases pending before the lower courts across the country, according to the law ministry sources.