Pending Cases in Indian Court: How to tackle?

The Lok Sabha was informed on Friday that there are over 4.70 crore cases outstanding in various courts across the country, including 70,154 in the Supreme Court. As of March 21 this year, the total number of cases pending in the 25 high courts was 58,94,060. The Supreme Court’s pendency was registered on March 2 of this year. Law Minister Kiren Rijiju stated in a written response that there are 4,10,47,976 cases pending in various district and subordinate courts.

The National Judicial Data Grid does not have figures for Arunachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep, or the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, according to the response.The Calcutta High Court has found that a personal hearing conducted via chat messages is not an effective opportunity for the assessee to have a personal hearing and does not meet the test of fairness or the norms of fair play. The Bench, which included Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, reiterated that once an insolvency petition is admitted, there can be no institution or continuation.

Long Pending Cases in Indian Courts

The Supreme Court of India establishes Constitution Benches to hear cases requiring “a serious point of law as to the constitutional interpretation.” These Benches, which might have five or more judges, are in charge of hearing the most important Supreme Court cases. The information about Constitution Benches on the Supreme Court website is cursory and only reveals half the picture, as is the case with many statistics released by the Indian court. 

While the Court offers aggregate data on the number of Constitution cases and related matters, it does not provide information on the length of time these cases are pending or how this affects the many related matters. However, a deeper examination of the cases reveals that some have been waiting for years with no resolution in sight. 

The five primary cases standing before the Supreme Court’s nine-judge Benches have been pending for an average of 7,804 days, and the outcome of these five cases affects the destiny of 130 other related cases. Property Owners Association v. State of Maharashtra (an important case determining the constitutional validity of Chapter VIII-A of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act) is one of them.

What are Pending Cases in High Courts in India?

Despite the Government of India’s efforts, India’s High Courts are operating with a whopping 37 percent of all sanctioned High Court judge positions unfilled. 

According to the most recent data released by the Ministry of Law and Justice, just 700 of the 1,104 jobs for High Court judges sanctioned in the country across 25 High Courts have been filled, leaving 404 seats vacant.

Allahabad High Court (67), Punjab and Haryana High Court (36), Bombay High Court (36), Calcutta High Court (33), Patna High Court (28), Delhi (26), Rajasthan (24), Telangana (23), Gujarat (20), and Madhya Pradesh (20) have the most number of vacancies (18). The negative impact of the severe judge deficit on society is shown in the volume of pending cases in the High Courts, which discourages the common man from visiting the courts. 

According to the latest figures, about 59 lakh cases are waiting in the country’s various High Courts, with 42.5 lakh civil cases and 16.4 lakh criminal cases. The number of cases outstanding in Patna is 2.24 lakh, Allahabad 10.32 lakh, Punjab 4.50 lakh, Bombay 5.80 lakh.

What are Cases per Judge in India?

According to the Law Ministry, each high court judge has roughly 4,500 pending cases. The same data shows that each judge in the lower judiciary has roughly 1,300 cases outstanding. The ministry calculated the average cases pending per judge based on the sanctioned strength using the number of cases pending in high courts and inferior courts.

According to the National Judicial Data Grid, there were 2.91 crore cases pending in district and subordinate courts at the end of 2018. There were 47.68 lakh cases pending in the 24 high courts. Telangana now has its own high court, bringing the total number of high courts in India to 25.

According to the data, each high court judge has 4,419 cases pending, while each lower court judge has 1,288 cases pending.It claims that while the subordinate courts’ sanctioned strength is 22,644, the working strength is 17,509, indicating a 5,135 judicial officer deficiency.In the high courts, the sanctioned strength is 1,079, but the working strength is 695, resulting in a 384-judge shortage.

Conclusion

As of March 21 this year, the total number of cases pending in the 25 high courts was 58,94,060. The Supreme Court of India establishes Constitution Benches to hear cases requiring “a serious point of law as to the constitutional interpretation”. While the Court offers aggregate data on the number of Constitution cases and related matters, it does not provide information on the length of time these cases are pending or how this affects the many related matters. The five primary cases standing before the Supreme Court’s nine-judge Benches have been pending for an average of 7,804 days, and the outcome of these five cases affects the destiny of 130 other related cases. The negative impact of the severe judge deficit on society is shown in the volume of pending cases in the High Courts, which discourages the common man from visiting the courts. According to the latest figures, about 59 lakh cases are waiting in the country’s various High Courts, with 42. The number of cases outstanding in Patna is 2.