Under Section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, a death sentence cannot be carried out until the High Court confirms it. The trial court sends up its judgment and records as a “death reference,” and the High Court hears it together with any appeal or jail appeal the condemned prisoner has filed. The Code sets no deadline for this review. 

Samina’s case shows what that means. She was 16 when she was burned to death in 2005 over a dowry demand. A Dhaka tribunal sentenced six people to death in 2018, thirteen years later. As of June this year, the case was still awaiting a death reference hearing at the High Court.

The backlog is not new. In 2018 death references stood at 711, the highest in 15 years, and only 83 were resolved that year. In March 2022, the Chief Justice formed 11 High Court benches to clear death references over a two-week sitting.

The wait is not abstract for the people in it. The Department of Prisons counts 2,707 death-row inmates across 74 prisons. Under Rule 980 of the Jail Code, a prisoner sentenced to death is confined apart from others from the date of sentence, without waiting for High Court confirmation. 

The High Court tried to end that. On 13 May 2024 it declared it illegal to keep a convict in a condemned cell before the sentence is finalised, and struck down Rule 980 as unconstitutional. It gave prisons two years to move death-row inmates to general wards. Two days later, the Appellate Division stayed the verdict. No final ruling has been reported. 

A death reference is not a formality. In the Nusrat Jahan Rafi murder case, a trial court sentenced 16 people to death. The High Court upheld two of the sentences and commuted four to life imprisonment. Sentences change at this stage, which is exactly why delay is costly for convicts, victims’ families and the state.

The judiciary has started to respond. On 10 June, Chief Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury formed a dedicated bench of Justice Bhishmadev Chakrabortty and Justice KM Rasheduzzaman Raja for death references and appeals under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act. By 27 August, the bench had pronounced judgment in 17 cases. 

That is progress, but a narrow slice of the 2,707. Even in the priority lane, delays creep in. The verdict in the Magura child rape-murder case, first set for 25 August, was deferred after the state sought more time. The death reference reached the High Court on 21 May 2025, and the death sentence was upheld on 31 August 2026. That is more than a year for a case on the fast track. 

The wider court is moving slowly. UNB reported that the High Court Division reduced its pending caseload from 659,256 to 646,276, a fall of less than two percent. 

For two decades, Bangladesh has built fast lanes into its trial courts and left the review stage on the old road. A speedy tribunal that ends in a death sentence hands the case to the slowest part of the system. Speed at the bottom, without capacity at the top, only moves the queue upstairs.

Three changes would help:

• A statutory timeline for death references. It would work like the 90-day clock for speedy trials, with written reasons to the Chief Justice whenever a bench misses it.
• Digital case records from the trial stage. The High Court now hears death references on a paper book assembled from the trial record, which slows every step.
• A ruling on condemned cells. Two and a half years is long enough for a stay on the Appellate Division appeal.

People judge a justice system by the date on the final order. For Samina’s family, that date has not come in twenty-one years.