An Analysis on Pendency of Cases in Indian Courts (Paper)
- Gaurav Kumar, University of Calcutta
- January 21, 2021
Content :
Pendency of massive backlog cases in the Indian Legal System has become a hurdle in the path of accessing justice to the aggrieved party. “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied” is a basic principle of administration of justice in a progressive and civilised society. Thedelay in the delivery of justice affects the two fundamental rights access to justice and rule of law provided by constitution of India, henceforth affecting all the sections of the society.Apex Court in several of its judgements has highlighted the need of speedy trail. The concept of speedy trial comes under the ambit of article 21 as an essential part of fundamental right to life and personal liberty under the constitution of India. Statically, speaking a data provided by National Judicial Data Grid there are 31 million of cases pending in the district courts, 43,63,260 cases in High Court and 58,669 cases in Supreme Court. India is on the top in terms of backlog cases in the world. Many former Chief Justices have expressed their concern over this grave situation and the failure of the government in talking such situation. Despite of establishment of new administrative tribunals, the pendency of cases has not been controlled. There are various factors which are collectively responsible for the tremendous increase in the cases. The increase in awareness about the rights among common man, new mechanism of access to justice (PIL and RTI), lack of judges in courts have amounted to increase in the cases. The government needs to bring the structural as well as the administrational changes which would help in combatting with the backlog cases ensuring the access to justice on time. In this article, we will analyse the issues that leads the pendency of cases in the courtroom and the effective way to reduce the pendency.
