Pending cases in courts near 5-cr mark, Law Minister says 'initiatives being taken'

Pending cases across various courts in the country are moving towards the five crore-mark with an over 4.32 crore backlog in subordinate courts, according to data shared by the government in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

In separate written replies, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said as on December 31, 2022, the total pending cases in district and subordinate courts was pegged at over 4.32 crore.

He also said over 69,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court, while there is a backlog of more than 59 lakh cases in the country's 25 high courts.

Citing details available on the Supreme Court website, Rijiju said 69,511 cases were pending in the top court as on February 1.

"There are 59,87,477 cases pending in high courts across the country, as per the information available on National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) on February 1, 2023," he said.

Out of these, 10.30 lakh cases were pending in the Allahabad High Court -- the biggest high court of the country. The Sikkim High Court has the least number of 171 cases.

The total pending cases comes to 4,92,67,373 or over 4.92 crore.

The government, Rijiju said, has taken several initiatives to provide "suitable environment" for expeditious disposal of cases by the judiciary. PTI NAB NAB ANB ANB