Delay in Civil Justice System in Bangladesh: Focusing on Summons and Adjournment Procedure

1. Introduction

An essential requirement of justice is that it should be dispensed as quickly as possible. Our country provides an adversarial character in the civil process, so litigation is party controlled — mostly by the lawyers, judges and officers of the court rather than the parties. Delay is one of the main problems in our civil litigation. Delay in the judicial process causes backlog, and increasing backlog puts tremendous pressure on present cases and vice versa. This process goes on with no apparent remedy in view. The present rate of disposal of cases and the backlog are alarming for justice, the rule of law and the economic development of the country.¹

Most of the delays in our judicial system occur in the summons and adjournment procedure. Our judiciary still follows rules and regulations largely inherited from the British period, and there is limited use of modern technology in the judicial system. Numerous procedural loopholes are misused by litigants and their lawyers. It is highly expected that a case should be decided as early as possible, but due to procedural defects and repeated delays, a civil suit can take many years to be disposed of. It is widely alleged that the existing system of civil justice administration has failed to deliver justice within a reasonable limit of time and cost, leaving thousands of civil cases pending for decades. In this light, the main objective of this study is to trace the causes of delay in the disposal of civil cases in Bangladesh, focusing on the summons and adjournment stage.

2. Legal Framework and the Problem of Backlog

The structure of civil courts is governed by the Civil Courts Act, 1887.² The civil courts of Bangladesh are governed by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) and the Civil Rules and Orders (CRO). Under Section 3 of the Civil Courts Act 1887, there are five classes of Civil Courts: the Court of the District Judge, the Court of the Additional District Judge, the Court of the Joint District Judge, the Court of the Senior Assistant Judge and the Court of the Assistant Judge.

Every civil suit passes through several distinct stages under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908: presentation of the plaint (Order IV and VII); issuance and service of summons (Order V); appearance of parties and filing of written statement (Order VIII); examination of parties (Order X); discovery and inspection (Order XI); admission (Order XII); production, impounding and return of documents (Order XIII); framing of issues (Order XIV); disposal at first hearing (Order XV); summoning and attendance of witnesses (Order XVI); adjournments (Order XVII); hearing and examination of witnesses (Order XVIII); and judgment and decree (Order XX).

When a case is filed by the plaintiff, it is registered under Order IV Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure.³ After the completion of filing, the next stage of a civil suit is the issuance and service of summons.⁴ The civil justice system in Bangladesh is under heavy stress, and the backlog of civil cases is a regular scenario. Mounting backlog is gradually making the judiciary inactive. Delayed justice increases the cost of litigation, causes harassment to the parties, leads to public frustration, poses a major threat to the rule of law, and destroys public confidence in the administration of justice.

3. Judicial Interventions and Loopholes in Summons Procedure

The provisions for the issuance and service of summons are contained in Section 27 and Order V of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. A summons is an instrument of the court used to notify the defendant of the legal action brought against him.

Under Order V of the Code, there are several modes for service of summons:

• Personal or direct service: service is made on the defendant in person or on his authorised agent (Order V, Rules 12, 15 and 16).⁵
• Service by court officer: the summons is delivered by the process server (peon) of the court.
• Service by post: the summons is sent by registered post with acknowledgment due (Order V Rule 19A).⁶
• Substituted service: where the defendant is avoiding service, the court may order the summons to be served by affixing a copy in a conspicuous place in the court-house and on the last known residence, or by publication in a daily newspaper (Order V Rule 20).⁷

The summons process is heavily affected by institutional corruption and structural loopholes.⁸ Process servers frequently do not visit the address mentioned in the summons and instead prepare fake return reports from within the court premises. Litigants and process servers regularly collude to ensure that the defendant does not receive the summons, which results in ex-parte decrees or enormous delays. Plaintiffs sometimes intentionally provide incorrect, incomplete or false addresses in the plaint so that the defendant never learns of the suit, enabling an easy ex-parte order. Substituted service through newspaper publication also often becomes a mere formality: notices are printed in obscure, low-circulation dailies well beyond the reach of the ordinary defendant, frustrating the actual purpose of notice.

4. Critical Analysis of Adjournment Procedures

Adjournment means to postpone the proceedings of a case from one date to another. Order XVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 provides that the court may, if sufficient cause is shown, at any stage of the suit grant time to the parties and adjourn the hearing.⁹ Adjournments are intended for exceptional cases, yet they have become a routine tool used by litigants and lawyers to prolong proceedings indefinitely.

The law provides specific limitations on adjournments:

• By the amendment of 2003, Section 342A was inserted into the Code of Civil Procedure to cap the total number of adjournments at different stages of a suit.
• Order XVII Rule 1 sets a cost mechanism: the court shall fix a cost between two hundred and two thousand taka, payable by the party seeking adjournment to the opposite party.¹⁰

In practice, however, these statutory limits and cost mechanisms are rarely enforced.¹¹ Judges often hesitate to refuse adjournment requests or impose costs due to institutional pressure from local bar associations, since refusing adjournment can create professional friction between bench and bar. Litigants and lawyers use various tactics to obtain time, including frivolous petitions on grounds of the senior counsel's illness, engagement in another court, or the absence of material witnesses. Litigants also misuse revisional and appellate jurisdictions against interlocutory orders: when a revisional application is filed in the higher judiciary, trial court proceedings are stayed for months or years, halting the trial altogether. Witnesses are also frequently not produced on the scheduled date, requiring sequential adjournments under Order XVI¹² and Order XVII, which prolongs the peremptory hearing stage.

5. Proposed Solutions and Reforms

A. Digitalisation of Summons Service

• The concept of service should be updated to include electronic media. Summons should be permitted to be served through registered email, Short Message Service (SMS) and other widely used electronic applications.
• Court process servers should be tracked using GPS-enabled devices to confirm their physical movement and presence at the address specified in the summons when they prepare the return report.
• Independent private courier agencies should be authorised by the court to serve summons alongside traditional process servers, to ensure transparent and speedy delivery.

B. Enforcement of Strict Case Management and Adjournment Controls

• The cost provision under Order XVII Rule 1 should be made strictly mandatory. Where a party seeks adjournment without showing exceptional, unavoidable reasons, exemplary costs should be imposed by the judge.
• Courts should adopt a predefined "case flow management" model, in which timelines for filing written statements, framing issues and producing witnesses are fixed and strictly enforced.¹³
• Under Order XVIII, a system of day-to-day continuous trial should be introduced. Once recording of evidence begins, it should continue daily until all witnesses are examined, rather than allowing wide gaps between individual witnesses.¹⁴

6. Conclusion

The civil judiciary of Bangladesh suffers heavily from procedural backlogs that defeat the foundational objective of the administration of justice. The provisions regarding summons under Order V and adjournments under Order XVII of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 are constantly manipulated by parties and legal professionals to stretch cases out. Introducing electronic modes of service, ensuring strict enforcement of mandatory cost provisions for unnecessary adjournments, and practising careful case tracking will minimise structural delay, restore public confidence and help guarantee speedy civil justice for all.

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