New Delhi: In a reply to a query, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said that over 4 crore cases are pending in courts across the country.
The minister said that 3,44,73,068 cases are pending in lower courts – district and subordinate courts – district and subordinate courts – 3,44,73,068 cases were pending including 94,49,268 civil cases and 2,50,23,800 criminal cases.
The Allahabad High Court tops the list of High Courts with most number of unresolved litigations with more than seven lakh cases. Punjab and Haryana High Court follows with more than six lakh pending cases. The Madras High Court and the Rajasthan High Court has over five lakh pending cases according to the data updated until September 16, 2020.
The minister also said that the government has completed computerisation of 16,845 district and subordinate courts.
In May 2020, Supreme Court Justice DY Chandrachud, had shared data from the National Judicial Data Grind (NJDG) on the pendency of cases in India.
The data revealed that 32% of the cases are less than one year old and 28% cases fall in the category of cases pending for one to three years. 15% cases fall in the category of three to five years pendency. 15.28% cases fall in the category of cases which are five to ten years old.
While 7.1% cases have been pending for the period between 10 to 20 years, the Indian courts also have cases pending between 20 to 30 years, which constitute 1.28% of the total pending cases.