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Hans India
a day ago
- Politics
- Hans India
Indian courts burdened with backlog of 5.29 crore cases: Official data
Indian courts are burdened with a massive load of 5.29 crore pending cases, official data up to July 21 available on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) showed on Sunday. The maximum number of 4.65 crore cases are pending in district and subordinate courts, followed by 63.30 lakh cases in High Courts and 86,742 cases in the Supreme Court, the data showed. Apart from the burgeoning case backlog, the district and subordinate courts appear to have struggled to work at full strength. According to the Department of Justice, as against a sanctioned strength of 25,843 judicial officers as on July 21, 2015, the lower courts are working with a strength of 21,122. 'Filling up of vacancies in District and Subordinate judiciary falls within the domain of the State/UT governments and High Courts concerned,' according to a statement by the Law and Justice Ministry. As a measure to reduce backlog, arrears committees have been set up in all 25 High Courts to clear cases pending for more than five years, and similar arrears committees have now been set up under District Courts as well, the Ministry said. Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, in a recent reply in Parliament, shared details of government measures taken to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court and the High Courts. 'From May 1, 2014, to July 21, 2025, 70 Judges have been appointed in the Supreme Court. Apart from this, 1,058 new judges were appointed, and 794 Additional Judges were made permanent in the High Courts during the same period. The sanctioned strength of judges of the High Courts has increased from 906 in May 2014 to 1,122 till date,' said Meghwal. He also informed that Fast Track Courts have been established for dealing with cases of heinous crimes, cases involving senior citizens, women and children. As of June 30, 2025, 865 Fast Track Courts are functional across the country.
Time of India
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Now, performance-based leave for judicial officers
Kochi: High court administration has decided that the leave applications of judicial officers in the district judiciary will now be considered, based on their performance in case disposal. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now In this regard, the high court registrar (district judiciary) has issued an official memorandum to all principal district judges and chief judicial magistrates. They have been directed to include details of the percentage of target achieved, performance in the disposal of old cases and the quantum of leave availed over the last two years, while forwarding leave applications, other than casual leave, of judicial officers under their administrative control. The memorandum also recommends that the forwarding authorities include their own remarks when forwarding such leave applications. Meanwhile, some judicial officers have expressed concern that the rate of case disposal depends not solely on their individual performance, but also on various external factors such as cooperation from lawyers, availability of scientific reports and the presence of witnesses. They point out that commuted and earned leave are credited to their accounts as per the Kerala Service Rules (KSR), proportionate to years of service, and are typically availed for medical and family needs. They say that the move could adversely impact their future leave entitlements. Notably, KSR does not prescribe a performance-linked leave approval mechanism for any sector. However, HC sources said the objective is not to deny leave but to encourage more prudent use of leave, especially in light of the mounting backlog of cases. Absconding of the accused; a major reason for delay According to the National Judicial Data Grid, as of Friday, a total of 17.32 lakh cases are pending before various courts in the state, including 11.98 lakh criminal cases and 5.33 lakh civil cases. Notably, the most common reason for delays in case proceedings is the absconding of the accused, which accounts for 1,11,024 cases. The second most cited reason is the delay in receiving necessary documents, affecting 46,092 cases. The non-availability of counsel is the third leading cause of delay, with 4,386 cases pending for this reason, according to NJDG data.
Indian Express
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
In defence of court holidays
Written by Shubham Shukla and Kartikey Singh On May 26, as the Supreme Court (SC) began its seven-week 'summer recess', now officially termed 'Partial Court Working Days' (PCWD), critics resort to familiar complaints about 'judicial holidays' amid rising case pendency. However, this prevailing narrative misses the point. These breaks are not indulgences; they are structural safeguards, providing a critical breathing space that sustains 'judicial reasoning' in a system strained by relentless caseloads. Though rooted in colonial-era judges' discomfort with Indian summers and a craving for Christmas breaks, judicial vacations today serve a far more vital purpose. They enable intellectual rejuvenation, meticulous 'judgment writing', and deep legal research. Case pendency and blame game India's judicial backlog — over 4.5 crore cases, as per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) — is undeniably serious. But to attribute this crisis to judges' vacations is both analytically lazy and empirically indefensible, as also acknowledged in 2023 by the then Union Law Minister. A data-driven study based on Bombay High Court (HC) records found that court vacations have no significant impact on either 'disposal rates' or the time taken to resolve cases. This finding is not surprising when one considers institutional realities. India's SC functions almost year-round, hearing 'oral arguments' every weekday except during the mid-year and winter breaks, unlike many of its global counterparts. With 190 sitting days annually, India's apex court stands among the hardest-working top courts across the world. By comparison, according to the Supreme Court Observer, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) sits for just 68 days, the High Court of Australia for 97, South Africa's Constitutional Court for 128, the UK SC for 149, Israel's apex court for 159, and Bangladesh's for 183. Importantly, India's top court doesn't just sit more often, it hears far more cases. In the first half of 2025 alone, nearly 21,000 cases were placed before the SC, dwarfing SCOTUS's annual intake of 5,000-7,000 and leaving courts in the UK, Australia, and South Africa far behind. Even when it comes to non-sitting days, India fares better than most: The SC has 175 non-working days, compared to the US (297), Australia (268), South Africa (237), the UK (216), Israel (206), and Bangladesh (182). Yet, despite having more holidays and fewer sitting days, these other courts do not grapple with the scale of pendency that afflicts India. The reason is structural. The judicial systems of other countries limit access to the apex court through strict docket control, selective case admission, and robust lower court infrastructure. India's SC, by contrast, embodies a more expansive judicial philosophy, functioning both as a constitutional court and as the court of last resort for a vast and diverse population. This broad access — extending even to service, bail, and land disputes — reflects a democratic commitment to judicial access, though it inevitably contributes to a much heavier caseload. The relentless grind of a judge The popular perception of judges enjoying excessive leisure during vacations is a profound misconception. It fails to account for the intense, often invisible workload they undertake daily —work that extends far beyond courtroom hours. Unlike most professionals, judges rarely take personal leave while courts are in session, reserving it only for dire emergencies or serious illness. The real labour of adjudication begins after the court rises. A recent example comes from Bombay High Court's Justice Madhav Jamdar, who dictated an 85-page Transfer of Property Act judgment in open court on December 19, 2024. But it was uploaded on the HC website on 30 May 2025 — almost six months later. In his own order, he recorded that, even while conducting daily hearings for more than two hours after court hours, he still corrects and signs orders until 11:30 pm, reads case papers until 2:00 am, and works on weekends and holidays to clear his docket. This intense schedule lays bare the sheer volume of judicial labours beyond courtroom hours, demonstrating that judges every day need to balance exhaustive hearings, voluminous drafting, and meticulous editing against the limits of time. Notably, the length of a judgment often reflects the complexity of the legal questions involved. The most significant cases — those concerning privacy, reservation, or federalism — frequently run into hundreds of pages and shape jurisprudence for decades. These are not merely legal puzzles; they involve relentless public scrutiny, have zero margin for error, and impact millions of lives. Crafting such judgments demands immense intellectual labour: Exhaustive research, deep contemplation, parsing voluminous records, engaging with precedents, and rigorous deliberation within the Bench. Intellectual depth is paramount, and rushing such tasks in a state of 'cognitive exhaustion' risks shallow reasoning, conflicting precedent, and long-term jurisprudential damage — a far greater injustice than a well-considered pause. This is not a matter of personal preference; it is a clinical imperative. The stakes in many SC and HC cases are existential — the legality of a student's arrest, the future of a minor in a custody battle, or the constitutional validity of a statute. Importantly, judges hear arguments in court for an average of 7–8 hours a day. Without structured time to decompress and reflect, impaired cognitive function becomes inevitable, increasing the risk of judicial error and subsequent reversals on appeal. Judicial vacations thus serve as a necessary prophylactic. They provide an opportunity to recalibrate, catch up on judgment writing, and engage with wider reading, including interdisciplinary scholarship in economics, sociology, or political theory that increasingly informs welfare jurisprudence. Several judges have publicly acknowledged the necessity of these breaks. Former Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, speaking at a public event last year, noted that judges remain deeply committed even on weekends — visiting HCs, attending Bar events, or engaging in legal aid work. More importantly, without adequate, structured breaks, judges face serious risks of burnout, loneliness, and compassion fatigue. Empirical studies on 'judicial stress' show elevated levels of secondary trauma and emotional exhaustion. This is not just a personal or institutional burden. If left unaddressed, it may reduce judicial capacity, delay adjudication, and — perhaps most dangerously — erode public confidence in the judiciary's ability to deliver reasoned, impartial, and humane justice. Moreover, these breaks also serve as a crucial respite for advocates, who routinely operate under intense pressure due to rigid procedural deadlines and demanding court schedules. During vacations, far from 'shut down', the judicial functioning continues through Partial Court Working Days Benches, during which the Registry — the court's administrative backbone — also remains active. Urgent cases, especially those involving life and liberty, are routinely heard, ensuring that fundamental rights are not suspended during breaks. Blaming vacations for judicial delays ignores the real issues: Imperfect case scheduling, routine adjournments, chronic vacancies, and outdated infrastructure. As President Droupadi Murmu aptly noted last year, the deeper malaise lies in the 'black coat syndrome'— that vacations neither cause nor solve. Instead of targeting judicial breaks, policy focus should shift to genuine reforms: Appointing more judges, overhauling infrastructure, modernising procedures, and promoting alternative dispute resolution. The writers are lawyers based in New Delhi
India Today
15-05-2025
- Politics
- India Today
Chief Justice BR Gavai to hear Waqf law, marital rape, right to religion cases
Justice BR Gavai took oath as the 52nd Chief Justice of India on Wednesday and became the first from the Buddhist community to hold the highest judicial office in the country. During the seven-month tenure that he is going to have as the Chief Justice, BR Gavai faces a huge backlog of social justice cases, including on the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Act, among taking oath, Chief Justice Gavai spoke to the media and reaffirmed his commitment to reducing pendency in the courts. India Today takes a look at the issues that the new Chief Justice of India would have to take PENDENCY: According to the data available on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) there are 81,768 cases pending before the Supreme Court. A total of 28,553 of these are less than one-year-old. However, there is a significant number of matters that have been pending for more than five or even 10 years. CONSTITUTION BENCH MATTERS: There are 20 pending matters before five-judge benches, five matters before seven-judge benches, and three matters before nine-judge benches in the Supreme include the right to religion matters arising out of the Sabarimala temple dispute, a labour law matter before a nine-judge bench pending since 2001, an issue of data privacy on Whatsapp and the Delhi Government's dispute with the Centre over control of services, among AMENDMENT ACT: More than 120 petitions were filed before the Supreme Court after Parliament passed the Waqf Amendment Act on April 4. On April 17, a bench headed by the then CJI Sanjiv Khanna agreed to hear the issue of challenge to the Waf act. The bench asked the government to not touch certain provisions of the previous act and deferred the matter to be heard by a bench led by the new Chief Justice on May GACHIBOWLI FOREST LAND CASE: The Telangana government had announced it plans to auction some 400 acres of forested land adjacent to the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to build IT parks in February. This sparked widespread outrage and protests by Hyderabad University students, conservationists and others. The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice BR Gavai had intervened in the matter on April 17, issuing an immediate stay on the project, after being informed that bulldozers had been sent in to remove the trees in the "urban forest" matter is now scheduled to be heard before the bench headed by Justice Gavai on May OF GOVERNORS TO HOLD BILLS: On April 8, a Supreme Court bench verdict restricted the power of the Governor of a State to "hold" bills passed by the legislature and imposed a timeline on the Governor and the President to take a decision on giving assent to the bills. A dispute over similar action by the Kerala Governor remains pending before the Supreme RAPE ISSUE: The issue of the criminalisation of 'marital rape' is an important legal question before the Top Court. Organisations and individuals fighting for the equal rights of women have challenged Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, which criminalise case came to the Supreme Court in April 2022. The bench began hearing the case on October 17, 2024, but the bench headed by then Justice of India DY Chandrachud adjourned the matter as he was due to retire. The matter was not listed for hearing during the tenure of Chief Justice Sanjiv OF JUDICIARY: Several issues have come up in the last few months which raised concerns about the dignity and role of the Judiciary. From the corruption allegations after the Justice Yashwant Varma case to statements being made by Government Ministers and even the Vice President questioning "overreach" by the Judiciary, Chief Justice Gavai will have to put the debate to InTrending Reel
Hindustan Times
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Clear recommendations of collegium ‘expeditiously': SC
The Supreme Court on Thursday told the Centre to 'expeditiously' clear the recommendations of the Collegium for appointment of high court judges, referring to the chart that was made public on its website early this week, as it flagged the huge pendency of over 700,000 criminal appeals across all high courts that required sanctioned posts of judges to be filled up on an urgent basis. Passing an order in a suo motu proceeding on 'Policy Strategy for Bail' the court was considering a set of suggestions required to expedite the hearing of criminal appeals in high courts. Based on information provided by the high courts, the data of pending criminal appeals was pegged at 724,192, even though the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) shows this figure to be much higher at 761,432. Among the high courts with critical levels of pendency, Allahabad tops the chart with 272,000 pending criminal appeals, followed by Madhya Pradesh with over 100,000 such appeals to be heard as of March. At the same time, the apex court noted that the judicial strength in some of the high courts was significantly lower as Allahabad high court with 160 sanctioned posts had a working strength of 79 judges, Bombay high court has 66 judges out of 94 posts, Calcutta high court has 44 out of the sanctioned 72, and Delhi high court has just 41 despite 60 earmarked posts of judges. 'Few days back, this court released data of the Supreme Court collegium recommendations for appointing judges of the high is the aspect where Centre needs to act and ensure recommendations of Collegium are cleared expeditiously,' the top court said. It referred to the details shared publicly on its website with recommendations pending clearance since November 2022. Of them, the bench noted that five proposals from 2023 are pending with the government, 12 proposals from 2024, and another 12 from the current year. 'We want to flag one issue that we are not aware how many recommendations made by SC Collegium prior to this period are pending with the are also not aware of pendency of proposals where Supreme Court Collegium has reiterated the proposals after they were returned,' the order said. Underlining the link between pendency of cases and judicial manpower, the bench said, 'Not only huge number of criminal appeals are pending, there are other categories of litigations which are pending before the high courts. We hope and trust the pending proposals (by the Collegium) are cleared by the Centre at the earliest.' Senior advocates Liz Mathew and Gaurav Agarwal assisted the court as amici curiae (friends of court) in preparing the report. 'This gap (of judicial vacancies) exacerbates delays in case disposal, as fewer judges are available to manage a growing caseload,' the report said. Accepting the suggestion by the amici curiae to have hearing of principal bench matters at regional benches, the court said, 'We accept the suggestion in case of high courts with multiple benches. The high court on administrative side should examine possibility of appeal hearing through videoconferencing so that if principal seat has more pendency, then through other benches, disposal can be improved.' Other suggestions that got the court's nod included dedicated benches in high courts with criminal appeal roster; prioritising hearing of appeals based on age-wise pendency, severity of offence, terminally ill or advanced age convicts; and digitisation of trial court records.
