More than 4.63 million civil and criminal cases are currently pending in courts across Bangladesh, including over 561,000 cases in the Supreme Court, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Md Asaduzzaman told Parliament on Tuesday.
Responding to a question from lawmaker Md Golam Rasul during the 20th sitting of the second session of the 13th Jatiya Sangsad, the minister said a total of 4,639,476 cases were awaiting disposal in the country’s courts. The parliamentary sitting was presided over by Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed Bir Bikram.
The minister said that as of March 31 this year, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court had 38,713 pending cases, including 21,652 civil and 17,061 criminal cases.
The High Court Division had 522,331 pending cases, comprising 101,168 civil and 421,163 criminal cases. Together, the Appellate and High Court divisions had a total of 561,044 pending cases.
He informed Parliament that during 2025, the Appellate Division disposed of 7,553 cases, while the High Court Division disposed of 55,756 cases, bringing the total number of cases resolved by the two divisions to 63,309.
The minister further said that the country’s subordinate courts had 4,078,432 pending cases as of March 31. Of these, 1,690,443 were civil cases and 2,387,989 were criminal cases.
Over the past year, subordinate courts disposed of 275,084 cases, including 49,073 civil cases and 226,011 criminal cases.
To reduce the backlog and ensure speedy disposal of cases, the government has undertaken several initiatives, the minister said. A total of 536 judicial posts have already been created to strengthen the judiciary, while the recruitment process for 150 civil judges is currently underway. The Judicial Service Commission is also continuing the recruitment of supporting court staff.
He added that the government has recently established 650 Civil Judge and Senior Civil Judge courts, 406 Joint District and Sessions Judge courts, and 204 Additional District and Sessions Judge courts.
The proposal to create new judicial posts for these courts is under the government’s active consideration. Once implemented, the pace of case disposal is expected to increase significantly, he said.