Parliament told about the details of old pending cases in Higher Courts.
Recently, Dr. Auoam Hazra raised the issue of old pending cases of Supreme Court and High Courts and the Government replied in the Lok Sabha on 05.04.2017.
The Parliamentary questions were:
“Will the Minister of LAW AND JUSTICE be pleased to state:
(a) the details of the oldest criminal and civil cases pending in the Supreme Court and High Courts of the country; and
(b) the steps taken by Government to improve the condition of these. backlog in courts?”
The government replied to the Parliament as follows:
“(a): The data on the pendency of cases in courts including the pendency of oldest civil and criminal cases in courts are maintained by Supreme Court and High Courts.
As per information made available by Supreme Court, the oldest criminal matter pending in the Supreme Court is Criminal Appeal No. 39 of 1991 and the oldest civil matter pending the Supreme Court is Writ Petition (Civil) No. 7672 of 1982 as on 31.03.2017.
The data on the pendency of oldest civil and criminal cases as on 30.06.2016 was collected from High Courts.
Based on the information received from High Courts, details of oldest civil and criminal cases pending in High Courts are given in a Statement at Annexure”.
The government also indicated several efforts made in respect of judicial reform.
Questions and answers may be read hereunder.
The aforesaid clearly shows that so far Supreme Court is concerned, it is struggling on the civil side since 1982 and on the criminal side since 1991.
As per details available on SC website, the civil case is titled as Hans Raj Sharma vs State of Jammu & Kashmir and is connected with several other writ petitions of subsequent years such as 2001, 2005 etc. Website hardly shows any details about order passed.
As per details available on SC website, the criminal case is titled as Raichand Korshi Shah vs Malshi Meghji Charla and is connected with another case of 1986 titled as Central Board of DB Community vs State of Maharashtra Writ Petition (Civil) No.-740/1986.
This is apparently a constitution bench matter. It appears that due to death of some party and formality of substitution
of parties, the matter could not be placed for hearing.
So far high courts are concerned, the details are available in the Annexure which may be read here.
With the pendency of the year 1956, Rajasthan is at number one whereas, with the pendency of the year 1968, Delhi appears to be at the fifth position.
In recent times though the High Courts and Supreme Court have taken serious steps for reducing the pendency of old cases from the district court and apparently, Delhi has even asked the district judiciary to dispose of all the cases of more than 10 years by the end of December 2017.
Meaning thereby that there should not be any case pending which was filed before 01.01.2008.
However, there is nothing to suggest that as to how pendency in the High Courts & Supreme Court would be reduced.
Why the Supreme Court and High Courts are not taking concrete steps to dispose of the old cases is not understandable.
Contributor- Varsha Agarwal (Advocate)
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