PIL pile-up: 42-year-old case lingers as Supreme Court backlog swells to over 3,500

Supreme Court, the country’s top constitutional authority, is grappling with a mounting pile of public interest litigations (PILs), with thousands of cases languishing for years, and in some instances, decades — without resolution, Times of India reported.

More than 3,500 PILs are currently pending before the court, including 698 cases that have been awaiting adjudication for over a decade, according to data shared by the law ministry. The oldest among them dates back a staggering 42 years, underscoring the scale of judicial delays even in matters meant to serve the public interest.

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The bulk of these petitions relate to environmental issues, land laws and agricultural tenancy — sectors that often involve complex, long-drawn disputes. But the steady inflow of fresh cases is compounding the problem.

In 2025 alone, 570 PILs were admitted, the highest in recent years, further clogging the Supreme Court’s already stretched docket of over 80,000 pending cases. While the court has disposed of 1,872 PILs in the last five years, the pace has not been enough to significantly dent the backlog.

Providing details to the Lok Sabha, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said that as of March 10, a total of 3,525 PILs remain pending. The average time taken for their disposal, however, is not tracked.

The data reveals a steady stream of filings over the years. Apart from the 570 cases in 2025, the court received 347 PILs in 2019, 306 in 2020, and 293 in 2026, among others.

Among the oldest cases still awaiting closure are petitions filed in the mid-1980s, including three matters under M. C. Mehta vs Union of India — two linked to environmental concerns and one to housing and municipal laws — dating back to 1984 and 1985.

Even more striking are cases where the original petitioners are no longer alive. Contempt-related PILs such as Mohd Hashim (deceased) in Iqbal Ansar vs Sri Kalyan Singh and Aslam @Bhure vs S B Chowhan have been pending since 1995 and 1996, respectively.

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Several other long-pending matters include Haradhan Roy (deceased) vs Union of India (1997), O Fernandes (deceased) vs Union of India (2005), and Shiv Sena Party vs B G Deshmukh (2010) — a reflection of how litigation has outlived litigants in many cases.

The list of petitioners spans a wide spectrum — from the Archaeological Survey of India and a range forest officer in Karnataka’s Bagalkot district, to the Bihar Police Association, politicians like Subramanian Swamy, activists such as Medha Patkar, as well as pharmaceutical firms, builders and hoteliers.

What emerges is a system under strain, where PILs — once envisioned as a powerful tool for social justice — are increasingly caught in the very delays they sought to overcome.