Despite Millions Pending Cases In Courts In India, The Judges Want A Long Summer Vacation In Court. Why Can’t Judges Resolve The Whopping Long Pending Cases?

Despite Million Pending Cases In Courts In India, The Judges Want A Long Summer Vacation In Court. Why Can’t Judges Resolve The Long Pending Cases?

If Crime doesn’t go on vacation then why Courts?

Before becoming an economy worth $5Trillion, India has crossed the mark of 5 crore somewhere else that is the number of cases pending at Indian Courts. There are more than 1.5 Lakh cases that are pending in courts from over 30-35 years. In several cases, either the victim or accused or both have died, but the cases are continued with the next generation.

Court Vacations

• Supreme Court has 193 working days a year for its Judicial functioning
• High Courts function for approximately 210 days, and trial courts for 245 days
• Supreme Court breaks its annual summer vacation which is seven weeks (May- July)
• Week-long break each for Dussehra and Diwali and about two weeks at the end of December starting from Christmas

How did we reach here?

According to Niti Ayog, it will take more than 300 years to clear this backlog. And every year there is a rise in pending cases.

The above data shows that there are 4.44Cr cases which are pending in District and Regional courts and more than 60 Lakh cases in High Court and Supreme Court each.

But what is the Reason behind it?

The above image shows the number of pending Civil and Criminal Cases.

About 48% of India’s population resides in these marked states, where there is the highest percentage of pending cases.

The number of new cases is more than the number of cases that are solved yearly. And if this speed continues then the number of pending cases will keep on increasing rather than reducing.

What is the root cause of it?

Well 3 people are highly responsible for solving any case

• Judge
• Lawyer
• Police

Judge: There are only 21 Judges per million population. Though there was a suggestion by Justice V S Malimath, that there should be at least 50 Judges for every 10 lakh people. About 34% of sanctioned strength is vacant in all courts.

Lawyer: The biggest reason behind this huge number of pending cases in India is the Unavailability of Counsel. More than 70 Lakh cases are pending only because of this reason. Even though there are shortage of lawyers plenty of them are frauds currently.

Police: As there are the highest number of pending cases are criminal so court alone can not deal with it until the Police do their job properly in finding evidence and get lazy or easygoing on the filing of complaints or charge sheets.

Nearly 50% of powerful people especially in Politics have Criminal records.

Judicial Infrastructure: Neglected!

Nationwide India spends only 0.08% of its GDP on the Judiciary. And when about Rs. 981.98 Cr. were sanctioned to courts then about 91.36% of funds remain unused. And this pattern continues.

Also, PIL (Public Interest Litigation) has become a cool factor these days. People come up with illogical reasons filing PIL just to be famous sometimes, and making it Personal Interest Litigation.

When did the issue of Pending Cases start?

The issue of pending cases originated from the time of British rule in India. This was proven by many Committees among which the two most famous committees are Satish Chandra Committee and Mallimath Committee.

Steps taken to resolve the issue 

Plea Bargaining: In exchange for some concession, the accused is provided the option of pleading guilty.

Alternate Dispute Resolution: Lok Adalat and Village courts were set up, and tried to solve cases before appearing in court.

Even though after incremental steps pendency is continued and rising. To solve this problem we need Radical changes.

From conducting yearly exams and giving results on time a proper career path needs to be designed and also needs to solve the appointment process of the Judges. For this, the current system is highly inefficient and its mandate is to develop a different system for all this.

In many countries, the retirement age of Judges is 75 and in the US judges can hold offices for life time. Then why not similarly is the case in INDIA? 

If the corruption goes less there could be a reduction in vacancies and Major Police Reforms, so that the cases delayed should not go pending because of delayed investigation.

There is a need to solidify the infrastructure of the Judiciary in both state and Central Government by increasing its Budget. So the basic operational inefficiencies could be solved and the time of pending cases could be reduced.

There are many government and private sectors and all are working 14-18 hours a day but there is no vacation for them, so why the Judiciary?  These holidays should be cut down and should only be taken when required. Instead, the court is closed all at once. Even Ex-Law Minister Kiren Rijiju also criticized long vacations as they cause inconvenience to Litigants.

There are Vacation Benches where if Urgent cases come up then 3-4 Judges are available when the Court is not functioning.

As of January 2024, the Supreme Court of India has a total of 80,221 pending cases. These cases are categorized into various types, providing a broad view of the nature of legal issues being addressed:

• Special Leave Petitions (SLPs)account for the largest portion, with over 32,000 cases pending.
• Appeals are also significant, with around 23,000 cases pending.
• There are 884 cases pending in the category of Contempt.
• Suo Motu cases, where the court has taken up matters on its own, amount to 35 pending cases.
• Additionally, there are 444 constitutional matters pending before the court.

The majority of the pending cases are civil matters, constituting about 78% of the total, with the remaining 22% being criminal cases. Notably, more than 4,000 of the pending cases have been unresolved for over a decade, indicating significant legal and procedural delays.