At the National Law Day celebration, Chief Justice of India S. H. Kapadia made his point very clear regarding the pendency of cases in the Supreme Court. CJI said that the issues relating to pendency and arrears of cases have not been projected properly giving a “totally wrong impression that there have been millions of cases pending”. 

While emphasising on the existence of Rule of Law and Separation of Power in a democratic country like India, he stated that every institution is ridden with certain deficiencies. These deficiencies have to be rejuvenated for an institution to survive and that can be done only with public support and faith in that particular institution.

According to Justice Kapadia, to discard any system on the basis of a bad name is unjustified and the Status Report which was released on the same day proves the point that Judiciary has not failed in its endeavour to perform its duties and functions in accordance to the spirit of the Constitution.

He reiterated his point that in most cases it is the judges who are blamed for the pending of cases but that is not what should be done. He said, “there is a need to highlight that all the stakeholders are accountable for maintaining and achieving standards of Court Excellence. The executive including the police and the Bar have an important role to play in expeditious disposal of cases”.

Supporting his argument with the published Status Report, he stated that 74 percent of the cases pending in High court and subordinate courts are less than five years old. While he did not deny that there is a backlog of cases, however, it is not as big as is sought to be projected. According to the Status Report released for the first time, there are a total of 56,383 cases pending as recorded on November 1, 2011. Out of the total pending cases,  there are 32,080 admission matters (miscellaneous), out of which 6,037 are complete in which all the preliminaries are completed and are ready for hearing and 26, 043 are incomplete in which the preliminaries not completed. The preliminaries that are not complete include process fee not paid, notice yet not served, pleadings not completed, notice of lodgement of appeal not served, statement of case not filed etc.

On the other hand, there are 24,303 regular hearing matters out of which 10,407 are ready in which all the preliminaries are completed after admission and 13,896 are not ready in which preliminaries are still not complete.

CJI said that the delay in the disposal of the matters was because of these preliminaries not being completed like failure to remove the defects and objections by the advocates.

It can be summarised by saying that out of 56,383 pending cases, 39,939 (71 percent) are not ready due to preliminaries not completed and 16,444 are ready (29 percent) and hence the arrears in ready matters are only 8710 cases. The Report also shows that on average (two years) 710 days are taken to make matters complete.

The Report also points out the rate of disposal in the Supreme Court. Between May 2008 to April 2009, 61,850 cases were disposed of and there was prominent increase in the rate of disposal between May 2010 to April 2011, during which 79, 621 cases were disposed of.

Moreover the Report has also published the disposal of cases on a five year basis between (December 31, 2005- December 31, 2010). In the Supreme Court, high court and subordinate courts, out of 11.16 crore pending cases, 10.77 crore were disposed of.

CJI in the report has pointed out the cases falling under the Negotiable Instruments Act have been increasing and as per the available data there are 35 lakh cases pending in the subordinate courts and the reason for low disposal was incomplete service of summons in those cases.

The CJI has come out with a suggestion that courts dealing with the NIA matters should be provided assistance of police station in the courts itself like other criminal cases.

The Report also shows that the Government has increased the budget under various schemes in an effort to reduce pendency of cases. The budget for court infrastructure has been increased along with the budget for E-Courts. It’s markedly evident that the Government is doing its best in order to solve the problems of pending cases.

Describing the focus of the Judiciary to be expeditious disposal of 26 percent of cases which are more than five years old, CJI has proposed the initiative of “Five plus free” by the year 2012. According to CJI, the whole solution to the problem of backlog of cases could be found by appointment of Working Committee on Arrears and Court Management.

While agreeing Judicial Accountability is an integral part of the system at present, he advocated for a balanced approach towards Judicial Independence. He clearly stated that Judges don’t mind a studied fair criticism. However, he advised the Bar ‘do not dismantle an Institution without showing how to build a better one’.

Statistics of Pending Cases