The cases filed each month in Chittagong district overwhelmingly outnumber the ones adjudicated during the period. As the cases pile up at the courts, at the end of the year the backlog becomes too heavy a burden. Amid this, a shortage of judges has made things unbearable for litigants.

"My family has been running a case since 2003," said Md Mohsin, from Rangunia upazila.

The family members have to travel all the way to the city to appear at the court regularly.

"On the hearing dates, we have to reschedule our other important activities," he told The Daily Star.

"Both our time and money go to waste if the hearing is not held due to the shortage of judges."

Another litigant, Morium Begum, said, "We have to pay lawyers and bear other costs."

Not only that, delay in the disposal of the case adds to mental stress, she said.

Fourteen posts of judges out of the total 50 have been vacant under Chittagong district session judge's and judicial magistrates' courts for two years, said court sources.

The figures are exclusive of the metropolitan courts.

Due to the shortage, appeals like time petitions cannot be heard, and the interim orders needed to make the judicial process get going are not being issued, said lawyers.

Eventually justice-seekers suffer the most. Judges are overworked too. They are forced to perform additional duties, which is putting a huge pressure on them, said Abul Hashem, a public prosecutor.

He said 1.5 lakh cases -- 1.2 lakh of them civil and the rest criminal -- were pending with the Chittagong courts.

Lawyers say due to the shortage of judges, trial processes are lingering and the number of under-trial cases is going up because of new cases, but court operations are almost absent in these courts, except for repeated rescheduling of the hearings.

Giving a picture of the situation, lawyer Swagata Chowdhury Bidhan said on July 7, 2015 a court fixed January 1, 2016 as the next hearing date because it did not have any regular judge.

Situations, however, have improved slightly after the Case Management Committee at the direction of the chief justice met thrice in the last three months, said PP Hashem. The state lawyer said the meetings stressed the need for adjudication of the cases lodged before 2000 within six months, but the shortage of judges might hinder the process.

Md Mujibul Haque, president of Chittagong District Bar Association (CDBA), said they wrote a letter to the law ministry in June seeking appointment of judges. Accordingly the ministry sent the proposal to the chief justice, he added.

Registrar of the High Court Division Abu Syed Diljar Hossain said they received the proposal, and appointment of judges was under way all over the country.

However, the CDBA president said he did not see any such notice about the Chittagong courts.

There are 31 lakh cases pending with the country's courts including the Supreme Court, while the lower courts have 400 vacant posts of judges countrywide, according to SC sources.