CASE PENDENCY ON THE RISE – BURDEN ON COURTS

Right to legal remedy is our fundamental entity guaranteed in our Constitution. However, our
Judicial System over the last several years is unable to address the complications and technicalities
involved in the pendency of cases which are not related to law. Though there could be many reasons
attributed to the parties to the litigants’ side including shortage of manpower at many levels, a Study
is done to explore the three main components related to Case Management which play a huge part
related to the pendency. State-wise Data extracted for 33 States is furnished as under:
(a) Undated Cases : 3817331
(b) Cases Pending Registration: 717031
(c) Cases under Objection : 207727

Break – up of both Civil & Criminal cases is tabulated as under:

S.NO STATE UNDATED CASES CASES PENDING CASES UNDER
REGISTRATION OBJECTION
CIVIL CRIMINAL CIVIL CRIMINAL CIVIL CRIMINAL
1. ANDAMAN & NICOBAR 3296 7888 5 105 0 0
2. ANDHRA PRADESH 6003 6504 20712 26300 6757 4473
3. ASSAM 3203 20400 416 3667 130 444
4. BIHAR 63769 323066 1207 13925 269 2508
5. CHANDIGARH 3 1 2 4 0 0
6. CHATTISGARH 1601 9378 2129 8576 193 1336
7. DELHI 14822 22079 5207 16089 505 4371
8. DIU & DAMAN 0 1 1 3 1 0
9. SILVASA 0 1 15 30 15 30
10. GOA 5 119 280 242 56 101
11. GUJARAT 78356 217590 432 560 115 134
12. HARYANA 218 328 69 416 2 60
13. HIMACHAL PRADESH 975 1139 4204 7136 332 494
14. JAMMU & KASHMIR 16802 33633 5181 19035 573 1513
15. JHARKHAND 11885 49799 45 194 30 120
16. KARNATAKA 5667 5057 7407 10183 2783 2996
17. KERALA 13370 52755 26684 16328 3412 2357
18. LADAKH 106 69 3 8 1 3
19. MADHYA PRADESH 44271 162337 6350 20193 4032 10717
20. MAHARASHTRA 23224 107065 21795 11145 9492 7235
21. MANIPUR 2044 1135 517 1569 95 261
22. MEGHALAYA 21 349 2 16 0 5
23. MIZORAM 1164 1380 70 73 17 8
24. ORISSA 40751 137423 2896 20492 770 7616
25. PUNJAB 332 818 126 286 16 62
26. RAJASTHAN 4758 12395 18157 37334 3245 10328
27. SIKKIM 1 2 13 16 5 9
28. TAMIL NADU 18602 26053 97007 58649 45704 12112
29. TELANGANA 7992 9928 11256 10713 3884 1696
30. TRIPURA 25 39 82 161 31 92
31. UTTARAKHAND 3201 37725 396 3786 82 236
32. UTTAR PRADESH 266297 812535 41503 286041 10296 34048
33. WEST BENGAL 363679 761897 93955 143756 3776 5743
GRAND TOTAL 996443 2820888 368124 717031 96619 111108
Source- National Judicial Data Grid (District and Taluk Courts in India)
UNDATED CASES:
Usually if cases are transferred to another Court the dates will be shown as undated. In case if the
proceedings pending before High Court there will be no date until the interested party move the Court
and get a date for hearing. Any case for which the next date of hearing has not been assigned is
called an undated case.
States like Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, etc
are showing huge cases which are undated that adds huge constraints to the process of adjudication.
The main reasons attributed to this factor are, lack of interest by the parties concerned, many
deliberately seek delay in the process of adjudication, parties unable to bear the litigation fees, lack
of prioritisation assigned to cases, etc. Hence, it can be minimized when a law is made to assign a
fixed time period, say three months is assigned for every case to be listed compulsorily listed and
advised directly to the counsels and clients concerned through Mail/SMS to ensure that the case
moves to the next stage under due process of law. One of the Rule should stipulate that if the parties
fail to appear for three consecutive hearing, the case should be either dismissed or ordered Ex-partite.
CASES PENDING REGISTRATION:
In the absence of a standard structure format or uniformity across all Courts for both Civil and
Criminal matters discrepancies in filing of petitions and non-compliance of procedures spelt under
Rules of Practice, etc the rectification process takes considerable time. Though many courts are
publishing their observation sheets through website accessible to the advocates on vakalat the process
of completion and compliance takes an indefinite period as it involves many reasons like, non-
availability of documents from the clients’ side, shortage of manpower, etc. This issue could be
addressed when filing of Application or Petition could be enabled through Online publishing a
prescribed checklist to ensure that all documents are available beforehand. The scanned copies of
documents or enclosures can be verified at the respective courts and queries if any, can be raised
through the same online channel without any delay. Once it is approved, hardcopies can be submitted
before the filing section and acknowledgement taken for admission. The same could be listed for first
hearing for admission to take off the litigation process without any delay. States like Andhra
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, etc can explore
technology optimisation to reduce this backlog which poses a permanent pendency on long-term.
CASES UNDER OBJECTION:
Management of cases post objection is a major deterrent to the progress of any case as it results in
number of adjournments sought for many genuine reasons by the parties to the litigation. Generally
objections are put forth during the process of hearing on the grounds like, court is not competent to
entertain the suit on the original side, principal question of fact arising in the suit is not of civil nature,
.suit is expressly or impliedly barred by law, Jurisdiction as to subject matter, applicability of the
doctrine of Res Judicata, doctrine of Res Sub Judice, limitation, etc. All these factors can be perused
at the scrutiny stage itself under the powers of the Registrar who must be equivalent to the rank of
the highest Judge of that Court. States like Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are showing huge cases
pending under objection.
Hence there is a need to engage young law students to undertake a detailed Study to address the core
issues related to pendency of cases across various Courts in our country and to ensure that all
preliminary hurdles are removed for facilitation of smooth progress during the process of case
management for early adjudication of matters. There are already nearly fifty lakh cases pending
before the District and Taluk Courts in the country excluding High Courts, Tribunals, etc. that
attribute to these three major reasons under Case Management.