New Delhi: Justice is definitely delayed if not denied in India with data showing that nearly 5 crore cases are pending in courts across the country. According to the figures released by the Supreme Court on its web portal, a total of 69,511 cases are pending in the top court as on February 1, 2023.
There are a total of 50,275 admission matters out of which 39,740 are ready with all their preliminaries complete and ready for hearing and 10,535 cases are such whose preliminaries are incomplete and hence cannot be listed for hearing. Preliminaries include process fees, the serving of notices, and pleadings among others.
Similarly, there are 19,236 regular hearing matters on the pending list. Out of these, 19,201 are such matters whose preliminaries are complete and can be listed for hearing and 35 matters are such whose preliminaries are incomplete and hence cannot be listed for hearing. Data further shows that 15.21 percent of matters are those whose preliminaries are incomplete.
There are a total of 479 Constitution bench matters that are pending. Out of 479, 329 are pending before the five-judge constitution bench, 15 before the seven-judge Constitution bench, and 135 before the nine-judge Constitution bench. Supreme Court has constituted regular Constitution benches to expedite the conclusion of such cases. They assume importance as outcomes of Constitutional cases determine the laws and outcomes of other cases as well as they deal with the questions of law.
As far as High Courts are concerned, the situation is even worse as official data shows that as many as 59,87,477 cases are pending in such courts across the country. Of them, the highest number (10,30,185) was in the Allahabad High Court, followed by Rajasthan (6,40,267) and Bombay (6,20,586). The Sikkim High Court had the fewest (171) pending cases as on February 1. Over 4.34 crore cases were pending in district and subordinate courts as on December 31, 2022.
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