Home ›› 14 Feb 2023 ›› Front
The legal proceedings at the Dhaka Artha Rin Adalat, known as Artha Rin Adalat, have slowed down as the posts of three out of four judges had been lying vacant for the last five months.
In a gazette notification, the government finally appointed two judges to two courts this month who are expected to take charge by this week.
The trial process at three courts remained suspended since September last year when the judges of these courts were promoted as Additional District and Sessions judges and transferred. Later, Meher Nigar of Third Artha Rin Adalat served as an acting judge of three courts in addition to her own responsibility.
This judge also went abroad recently to take part in a training programme.
“We have issued the notification transferring two judges from Tangail and Jamalpur to Dhaka’s Artha Rin Adalat on February 9. The judges have been asked to hand over charge at their previous workplace by today [February 13]. They will join their new workplace soon,” MD Osman Haider, Deputy Secretary (Administration-1) at the Law and Justice Division told The Business Post.
“The judge who went abroad for training will return either by Friday or Saturday. She will join the court next week,” he added.
The official at the ministry’s administration wing said that they are working on appointing a new judge to the remaining vacant court. “The post will be filled as early as possible,” he said.
However, lawyers said in the last five months, the case backlogs at the courts have increased due to vacancy. Currently, nearly 40 thousand old and new cases remain pending. The court’s deferred statement recording dates one after another as it is tough for a single court to deal with the pile of cases of four courts.
When borrowers take loans from various financial institutions, including banks, and do not repay, they file cases against the defaulters to recover the loan. The plaintiffs, including the banks, expect that the cases will be settled as soon as possible and the loan amount will be returned to the banks. However, if the case is not settled on time, the banks suffer financial losses.
According to court sources, the first Artha Rin Adalat has roughly 4,200 cases, second court 12,400, third 14,300 and fourth court 6,600 lawsuits pending.
Lawyers said the Artha Rin Adalats were formed to settle loan default cases at the earliest. When the cases are not settled on time and loans are not recovered, the objective of forming the courts derails.
“According to the law, these cases need to be disposed of within 120 days since the start of the trial process. But the deadlines could not be maintained due to different reasons, including repeated deferments of hearing,” said Advocate Md. Zakaria Haider of Zakaria & Associates.
“For example, United Leasing Company Limited filed a lawsuit against the Managing Director of Taznin Industrial Enterprise Limited and another person in 2011 to recover a loan worth Tk89 lakh. The lawsuit is still pending at Artha Rin Adalat-2,” he said.
Janata Bank filed a case against the owner of Green Arrow Tannery with Dhaka’s First Artha Rin Adalat to recover Tk18 crore loan 16 years ago. But the case has not yet been resolved and still it was at the testimony recording stage. This was the first ever lawsuit filed with Dhaka Artha Rin Adalat.
Rupali Bank is the plaintiff in a number of cases involving more than Tk3,000 crore and the lawsuits are being tried by the courts for more than ten years.
A lawyer of the bank Moinul Haque said, “Every day 30-40 cases are put up in the cause list for hearing in the courts. When the case languishes for years, loan defaulters get chances to flee the country, leaving the banking sector to bleed.”
Artha Rin Adalat deals with lawsuits filed over bank and non-bank financial institutions’ (NBFIs) loan defaults.
