Cases Pending in Supreme Court of India

OVER 40 THOUSAND CASES PENDING IN SUPREME COURT AND ABOUT 40 LAKH CASES IN HIGH COURTS 

A total of 40,243 cases (both civil and criminal matters) are reported to be pending in the Supreme Court of India as on 31st January, 2007. and in 21 High Courts of the country 39,91,251 cases were pending as on December 31, 2006. These include 32,87,037 civil cases and 7,04,214 criminal cases.

The corrective measures are being taken for speedy disposal of court cases, these are:

Besides increasing the Judge strength from time to time, other measures such as grouping of cases involving common questions of law, constitution of specialised benches and organizing Lok Adalats at regular intervals etc. have also been taken.

*Alternative modes of disposal including mediation, negotiation and arbitration have been encouraged. Special tribunals like Central Administrative Tribunal, State Administrative Tribunals, Income Tax Appellate Tribunals, Family Courts, Labour Courts, Consumer Courts etc. have been set up to expedite disposal of cases.

*Information technology is being used in generation of cause lists, providing information to the litigants/Advocates etc. for speedy disposal of cases.

- Fast Track Courts (FTC) have been set up for the disposal of long pending cases, particularly sessions cases and cases involving undertrials in jails.

*The Government has extended the term of existing 1562 Fast Track Courts, which were functional as on March 31, 2005, for another five years i.e. upto March 31, 2010 for clearing huge pendency of cases at District level.

This was stated by the Minister for Law & Justice, Shri H. R. Bhardwaj in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.