India’s huge backlog of court cases is a disgrace – but Covid-19 has provided solutions
The Supreme Court’s E-Committee has made two excellent recommendations. They should be followed. Adnan Abidi / Reuters
Over three years ago, on January 12, 2018, four senior judges of the Supreme Court held a press conference to voice serious dissatisfaction at the way the institution was functioning. “The administration of the Supreme Court is not in order and many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months,” they declared.
For nearly a week media was full of stories about the Mangal Pandey moment in the rebellious judiciary. One challenge that the four officials specifically mentioned was the manner in which cases were being allocated to judges to get desired decisions from the court.
UPDATED: February 1, 2021 13:42 IST
Court View: The apex court has castigated the chronic pendency of criminal appeals
If justice delayed is justice denied, then the Indian judicial system has perhaps perennially denied justice to its litigants. In January, a law student filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking its intervention in clearing the massive backlog of cases in the judicial system.
Consider the numbers. As on July 17, 2020, 33.3 million cases were pending in India s district and subordinate courts, 4.1 million in the high courts. Even the Supreme Court had over 65,000 pending cases as on January 1, 2021. Though there is no data on cases pending in the tribunals, the 272nd report of the law commission found that just five tribunals had around 350,000 pending cases till July 2017.