79 to become judges soon

Of the 100 candidates the Bangladesh Judicial Service Commission (BJSC) recommended for recruitment as lower court judges, President Abdul Hamid has approved 79 and dropped 21.

The president did not approve the appointments of 21 as “objections” surfaced against them during police verification, said Mahbubar Rahman Sarker, deputy secretary (administration) of the law ministry.

Upon advice from the Supreme Court, the law ministry would now give posting to the 79 of the 100 candidates, who were selected for recruitment in March this year through a comprehensive recruitment process that includes preliminary test, written examinations and viva voce.

As the BJSC in March recommended that the law ministry take relevant steps to appoint the 100 selected, the latter sent their particulars to the home ministry for police verification.

During verification, six candidates were found to have been selected in freedom fighter quota but had submitted dodgy documents.

The Ministry of Liberation War Affairs also reported to the law ministry that there were unsure of the certificates of six freedom fighters.

The police also found objections against 15 other candidates during verification, a part of the recruitment process.

The law ministry had earlier this month sent the summaries of the 100 candidates to the president, including the police verification reports.

The BJSC, meanwhile, initiated a process to recruit another 115 new judges for the lower courts to fill vacancies and ease the massive case backlog.

BJSC Secretary Paresh Chandra Sharma has recently told The Daily Star that the commission has already held the written examinations of 1,225 candidates, who had earlier qualified in the preliminary test held on May 20.

Evaluation of their answer sheets was going on, he said, adding that only the successful candidates would be called for viva.

Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on October 31 in a message stressed the need for doubling the number of judges in the lower courts.

The number of approved posts of judges for the lower courts is 1,655, of which 387 were vacant. It is not possible for 1,268 judges to dispose of more than 27 lakh cases pending with the courts across the country, the chief justice observed.

Law Minister Anisul Huq on November 1 told reporters at his Secretariat office that the government would take necessary steps to fill the vacancies in the lower courts in phases.