The possibility of adjudicating the disputes within the tenure of the current parliament is slim and the cases are likely to be automatically dismissed after expiry of the current parliament's tenure on October 27 this year, sources said.

Ahead of the parliament election in 2001, the EC through reforms in electoral laws introduced a new system of lodging election dispute cases with the High Court (HC) Division, instead of election tribunals, in a bid for quick adjudication of the cases.

A total of 31 cases alleging various irregularities in the polls were filed with the HC soon after the election in October 2001. Eleven of those cases were dismissed due to reluctance of the petitioners to continue the cases and for lack of their initiatives. Five were dismissed on grounds of lack of merits, one was rejected and one became legally 'ineffective'.

Five of the 13 pending cases remain with the Appellate Division and eight in the HC division of the Supreme Court, sources said referring to a compilation of present status of the cases.

The slow pace of adjudication of election disputes encourages irregularities in elections and makes the legal provisions for remedy of such irregularities ineffective, election experts observed.

The system encourages the candidates to ensure their victory by any means and they believe that they will remain as lawmakers once the election result is declared, the experts said.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday former adviser to a caretaker government M Hafizuddin Khan termed the existing legal provision for adjudicating election disputes as incorrect and said it does not serve the purpose.

"If a person manages to get elected by malpractice, or by force or coercion or by any other unfair means, he cannot be unseated from the parliament due to loopholes in the legal system," he said adding that the weak system encourages malpractice in elections. "There is no record of unseating a lawmaker for malpractice in elections," he added.

He suggested adjudication of election disputes within 12 months of filing through amending the legal provision. "Massive reform is required in the election laws for holding elections in a free and fair manner," he said adding, "But neither the government nor the Election Commission has made any move to bring reforms."

Former election commissioner M Munsef Ali echoed the same view. "The slow pace of adjudication of election cases has made the legal provision ineffective. If the legal provision is not made effective, there is no meaning of continuing to have the provision," he told The Daily Star yesterday.

The former election commissioner who opposed the move to repeal the election tribunals in 2001 said, "We should not have introduced the system of lodging election disputes with the High Court as it is usually overloaded with cases."