Pendency in SC crosses 50,000 mark; HCs too hit by the spiral

In a blow to the concept of "Speedy Justice", the Supreme Court has for the first time in a decade run up a backlog of more than 50,000 cases. The unholy mark was crossed by the end of March 2009 when the number of pending cases stood at 50,163.

With computerization of the Supreme Court registry and use of Information Technology in docket management, pendency of cases in the 1990s was brought down from more than one lakh to a manageable 20,000. But the huge rush of litigants, despite an increased disposal rate, has proved more than a match for the judges, who hear more than 80 cases a day.

The pendency has steadily crept northwards since 2006, when it stood at 34,649. In January 2007, it had become 39,780 with the pendency jumping up by more than 5,000 cases. Justice K G Balakrishnan took over as the Chief Justice of India at this time and tried to put in place mechanisms to arrest the trend of spiralling pendency.

Despite an increased disposal rate of cases, the apex court failed to reduce the pendency as it could not cope with the rising number of cases filed every year. The dockets swelled and the pendency by January 2008 was within striking distance of the 50,000-mark, standing at 46,926. By January 2009, pendency rose to 49,819, before finally breaching the 50,000-mark in March 2009.

A similar trend was seen at the level of High Courts and trial courts. The 21 High Courts, working with strength of 635 Judges as against a sanctioned strength of 886, reported a pendency of 38.7 lakh cases as of January 1, 2009, against 37.4 lakh cases on January 1, 2008.

Trial courts, having a Judge strength of 13,556 against a sanctioned strength of 16,685, were burdened with an additional pendency of nearly 10 lakh cases by January 2009, when the pendency figure was 2.64 crore. It stood at 2.54 crore cases in January 2008.

The Chief Justice of India has been repeatedly requesting the state governments to increase the strength of trial court judges by an additional 10,000 to tackle the huge pendency, but most of them have brushed aside the only practical solution, citing a funds crunch.

Source: The Times of India