HC cause list goes online February 1

The age-old printed cause list, a roll of cases to be heard by the court any day, will be abolished at the High Court on February 1, as the cause list will go online on that day.

The High Court judges concerned will make serial numbers for hearing of the cases and the list will be posted on the Supreme Court website www.supremecourt.gov.bd after 8:00pm before the day of the hearing, Additional Registrar (Admin) of the HC Sabbir Foyez told The Daily Star yesterday.

After introduction of the online system, the bench officials will not be able to change the serial numbers like earlier by taking bribes, he added.     

He said the SC spends Tk 21 crore every year for publishing the cause list and has to allocate manpower and transports to carry around 2,000 copies of printed cause list every day.

A copy of cause list, which contains 400 to 500 pages, is now printed from the Bangladesh Government Press, said Sabbir, adding that the SC authorities have already informed the BG Press that the HC cause list will not be printed from February 1.

Chief Justice SK Sinha has decided in July last year to introduce such online system to save time and cost as well as remove corruption, he said. Online cause list for the HC started experimentally on November 1 last year, he added.

A few years back such online cause list was introduced at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court though its printed cause list is still published every day.

Replying to a question, the SC official said printing of cause list for the apex court will be abolished soon.