Delhi HC has least pending cases in metro cities

More than 60,000 cases are pending in the Delhi HC, of which 3,000 cases have been pending for more than a decade. The total pendency figure in Delhi HC stood at 1,15,512 cases on March 31, 2012.

More than 60,000 cases are pending in the Delhi high court, of which 3,000 cases have been pending for more than a decade.

All high courts across the country have a bulk of cases pending for years, with the country’s high courts alone having more than 44 lakh cases on hold at the moment, according to estimates.

According to the reports, the number for the Delhi high court has gone down as the total pendency figure stood at 1,15,512 cases on March 31, 2012.

However, in the district and subordinate courts, the number of pending cases are over 70,000 as of 31 December 2013.

There are 64,652 pending cases in the Delhi high court, this number is one of the lowest in comparison to the other high courts in the metropolitan cities.

The Bombay high court has more than three lakh cases pending. Topping the charts is Allahabad high court which has more 10 lakh cases pending, out of which more than 30,000 are more than a decade old.

The data on rape cases shows there are more than 32,000 pending cases of rape in the various high courts. There are more than one lakh rape cases waiting for justice.

According to the experts, main reasons for delay in disposal of rape cases, including poor quality of investigation and lack of laboratories and frequent adjournments.

Once again topping the charts is the Allahabad high court with more than 8,000 rape cases pending. The national capital, which has the highest rate of crime against women, has almost 1,000 rape cases waiting for justice. The numbers

for Northeastern states run into single digits wherein Meghalaya has no pending rape cases.

The data on pendency provided by the high courts to the government gives details of the cases categorised age- wise. The list also gives the details of criminal and civil cases pending in these courts.

In order to create an enabling environment for judiciary, the government had set up National mission for justice and legal reforms. The initiative was to majorly computerise courts to increase the out- put.

Under the e- courts project, 13,227 courts have been computerised by the end of 2013.

In order to reduce the government litigation in courts, the Centre had encouraged the state to notify their litigation policies which contain provisions for weeding out infructuous cases.

Currently, the government is also looking into areas prone to excessive litigation for adopting suitable policy and legislative measures to curb such litigation.