2.18 cr cases pending in courts till May 31, reveals Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Reasons may be many, from inadequate number of trial judges to lack of infrastructure, but the snailpaced judicial system continues to carry a large chunk of cases that have been on its back for more than a decade.

Latest statistics released by the Supreme Court say that by May 31, courts across the country recorded a pendency of 2.18 crore cases, of which 27% or 59.3 lakh cases have been pending for more than five years entailing litigants to visit the courts several times.

Of the 59.3 lakh cases pending for more than five years, as many as 22.3 lakh cases have been on board of courts for more than 10 years, the eCommittee statistics revealed. The eCommittee conceded that the national average of disposing of very old cases has come down.

The National Judicial Data Grid statistics revealed that at the end of April 30, there were 27.4 lakh undated cases pending in various courts and it increased to 28.8 lakh cases by May 31.

The states which reported the largest number of more than 10-year-old cases are: Uttar Pradesh -6.6 lakh; Gujarat -5.2 lakh; Maharashtra -2.51 lakh; Bihar -2.3 lakh; Odisha - 1.83 lakh and West Bengal 1.51 lakh. Among the larger states, Punjab recorded the least number of more than 10-year-old cases with 1,328 of them pending.

From time to time, the Chief Justice of India on be half of the judiciary and the governments have been resolving to expeditiously dispose of old cases and cases filed by senior citizens and women.But, the message does not appear to have had the desired effect at the ground level.

As many as 7.1 lakh cases filed by senior citizens and 21.4 lakh cases filed by women are pending in trial courts. Karnataka, which had done reasonably well in disposing of over 10-year-old cases, lags in attending to cases filed by senior citizens. States with large pendency of cases filed by senior citizens are: Maharashtra -2.07 lakhs; Karnataka -1.07 lakh; Tamil Nadu 64,018; UP -63,762; Gujarat 49,837 cases.

Highest pendency of cases filed by women has been reported from UP, which has 4.4 lakh such cases.

Other states where large pendency of cases initiated by women are: Maharashtra -2.7 lakh; Bihar -2.17 lakh; West Bengal -1.72 lakh; Karnataka -1.47 lakh; Tamil Nadu -1.37 lakh and Rajasthan - 1.19 lakh.