NEW DELHI: Over two crore cases are pending in the country’s lower judiciary, out of which more than 10 per cent have remained unsettled for over 10 years, latest Law Ministry data says.
As per available data on the National Judicial Data Grid website as on December 31, 2015, there are a total of 2,00,60,998 cases pending across the district courts in the different states.
Out of these, 83,00,462 or 41.38 per cent cases are pending for less than two years. At the same time, 21,72,411 or 10.83 per cent cases are pending for over 10 years, a note prepared by the Department of Justice for a high-level meeting on Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms says. The meeting will be held next week.
While referring to the data available on NJDG website, the note clarifies that it does not cover all courts across the country, therefore, the Department of Justice periodically collects the data on pendency of cases from the 24 high courts and the Supreme Court.
The data states that 36,30,282 or 18.1 per cent of the cases are pending for the last five to ten years.
The number of cases pending between 2 and 5 years stands at 59,83,862 or 29.83 per cent of the total cases.
In a written reply, Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda had informed Lok Sabha in December last that the subordinate courts settled 1,9019,658 cases in 2014.
He had said that the 24 high courts disposed of 17,34,542 cases in 2014. The pendency in the high courts was estimated at 41.53 lakh at the end of December 2014.
The Supreme Court disposed of 44,090 cases last year till December one, while the pendency there has been estimated at 58,906 till the beginning of December 2015.
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