New Delhi, August 7
More than 71,000 cases are pending with the Supreme Court where over 10,000 cases awaiting disposal are over 10-year-old, the Government has told Parliament.
High courts and subordinate courts too have witnessed substantive increase in pending cases as the combined number of cases awaiting adjudication almost touched 4.84 crore.
As on August 2, 71,411 cases— over 56,000 civil matters and over 15,000 criminal matters — were pending the Supreme Court, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
While 10,491 were pending for more than 10 years, more than 42,000 cases were pending for less than five years and 18,134 between five and 10 years, the Law Minister said.
In response to questions from MPs, Rijiju said while 40,28,591 cases were pending in the 25 high courts in 2016, the numbers went up by 50 per cent to 59,55,907 as on July 29 this year.
The subordinate courts too witnessed a 50 per cent rise in cases between 2016 and July 29, 2022 — from over 2.82 crore to over 4.24 crore cases, Rijiju said, disposal of cases was the job of the judiciary, no time frame had been prescribed in this regard.