9/5/2019 about:blank about:blank 1/3 Published : Thursday, 10 January, 2019 at 12:00 AM Count : 253 Prolonged delay in delivering civil Justice Abu Noman Mohammad Moin Uddin Shibly and S M ShahidullahMamun Civil justice system is premised on the notion of enforcement of one's right when s/he suffers a legal injury. A claim to have the calling of 'right' in the eye of law must be backed by an effective remedy as it is oft-said that 'where there is a right, there is a remedy'- a principle stemmed from the Latin maxim 'ubi jus ibiremedium'. A legal redress to be effective, its acquiring process needs to be accelerative, affordable and easily accessible to the justice seekers. In this respect, Gladstone (1809-1898) is quite justified in prescribing 'justice delayed is justice denied'. Our civil justice administration is predominantly guided by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. The Code was unquestionably a good law from the erstwhile British-Indian societal context. It provides for a strict procedure of disposing of civil suits and proceedings incorporating necessary procedural safeguards such as the principles of audialterampartem (summons), res judicata, res subjudice, commission, appointment of receivers, temporary injunction, arrest and attachment before judgment, appeal, revision, review, setting aside of, ex parte decree or, dismissal order for default, adjournment of proceedings for unavoidable reasons etc. But unfortunately the recent trend shows that the Code has become a prey of abuse and misuse by a section of legal stakeholders who though, are professionally committed to upholding the rule of law. The sacrosanct safeguards have been made into baneful procedural complexities resulting in protracted delivery of civil justice. At present, the judiciary is crippled with an overwhelming backlog of 1.3 million of civil cases (Law Minister in parliament on Jan 16, 2018). Such huge caseloads are attributed inter alia, to procedural complexities. First of all, a civil case experiences prolongation at the very stage of issuance and service of summons/notice. Summons is required to be served in two ways-one is through process server and the other through registered post. Though it is required to issue summons within 5 working days of instituting a civil suit, in practice the provision is not strictly complied with. In some cases it takes month(s) to issue a summons and for the same being returned served. Sometimes the process servers' return summons unserved making report accordingly sitting in Nejarat without going to the spot addressed therein. On the inquiry of reasons, the writers came to know that the process fees fixed for serving summons are miserably inadequate in comparison to the actual cost required for travelling from the court to the spot and vice versa. That is why the process servers do not go to the spot unless they are sufficiently paid for the same in addition to the usual fees paid while presenting plaint. Secondly, though the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) system was introduced into civil justice delivery mechanism in 2003, it did not bring forth the expected outcome in most of the civil suits barring in a few