New Delhi, 19 August 2013

The data on pendency of cases is maintained by the Supreme Court and High Courts. As per the available information, the details of pending Civil and Criminal cases in 21 High Courts of the country were 34,01,193 and 9,39,674 respectively. Thus, there were total numbers of 43,40,867 cases pending in the High Courts as on 31.03.12.

This was stated by Mr. Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister of Law & Justice and Communications and Information Technology in Rajya Sabha in reply to a question from Rajya Sabha Member, Mr. Parimal Nathwani. According to a statement presented by Mr. Kapil Sibal in the house, there were 52,970 civil cases and 26,559 criminal cases pending in the High Court of Gujarat as on 31st March 2012.

In another statement, it was informed that only 631 High Court Judges were working as against the approved strength of 906 judges in various high courts of the country. The High Court of Gujarat had approved strength of 29 permanent judges and 13 additional judges against which only 20 permanent judges and 11 additional judges were working thereby leaving 11 positions vacant.

Filling up of the vacancies in the High Court is a continuous consultative process among the constitutional authorities to select suitable candidates for higher judiciary, the minister stated. He also informed that in order to expedite the trial of court cases, a number of legislative changes have been made in procedural laws. The challenges posed by huge backlog and pendency of cases in our judicial system cannot be met without active involvement of judiciary, the Minister added.

The High Court of Allahabad topped the list with 6,70,471 civil cases and 3,38,062 criminal cases pending, as per the statement presented in the house by the minister.

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