In the last few months at DAKSH we have
been working with a lot of big numbers. We are collecting data on all ongoing cases
from 10 High Courts in India. We already have details for over five lakh case
records from these High Courts, and this data grows every day. Each day sees
nearly 3,000 new cases per High Court being added to our database.
One of the many aspects of our study is a detailed
analysis of the data systems of each High Court. As we have discussed earlier,
each High Court makes available two sets of information: cases that are to be
heard every day in the form of a cause list, and the status of cases that
various litigants have filed. Put together, the cause list and case status
details prove to be a very important resource for building our database. A central focus of our work is to
understand the life cycle of a case: the total time a case spends in the court,
from the date of its institution to the date of its disposal. What we do is gather this information such that details
for each case is available for a closer look. If there are, as Court News tells
us, 44 lakh cases pending in the High Courts as of June 2014,[1]
we should, in the span of this year, be able to collect information on all
these cases.
This data has not been collated in an
aggregate form for analysis in India before. I am often left wondering how to
navigate the question of ‘big data’: how to analyse this much information and
what it tells us about judicial processes. This is an interesting question, as
different court systems around the world are now using big data analytics not
only to strengthen judicial processes but also predict criminal behaviour. As a
result of this, the conversation about the use of data in countries such as the
US revolve around the ethics of the use of data, since the problem seems to be
too much information.[2]
In India though, although much is said
about the judiciary relentlessly, analyses of the judiciary are usually encumbered
by a lack of sufficient data. In the
Indian context, there’s no doubt that data can be used to support or refute several
claims being made about the judiciary. This is DAKSH’s
approach: we review various arguments or claims made about the Indian judiciary
by taking a close look at what the processes in the courts are telling us
through data.
It turns out however
that this data that holds so much promise comes with several problems, a
notable one being lack of uniformity. Some courts make more information available than
others. In some courts, we have extremely detailed information against each
case number that includes all orders and listings of the cases. Some High
Courts have historical data – not just on what is currently in process but on cases that have already passed through
the system in previous years. Some other courts however do not even specify the
date of filing for cases, which means that we do not have an accurate reading
on the number of days the case has been in process.
So we are able to assemble only data that
is available from each High Court website, contingent upon the data management system
of that court. For example, whereas we are able to parse extensive case records
for the High Court of Karnataka, which manages its data efficiently, we have
very limited detail for the Calcutta High Court, which does not. We detail the
availability (and lack) of data on our website: http://dakshlegal.in/info/court-data/
There is no standardisation across the
different court systems, despite the fact that the case information and actors
in the system are the same. This is an important point to note. For a litigant,
that different High Courts have different ways of organising information is not
quite relevant as long as they are updated about the status of their cases.
However, it seriously hinders macro-analysis since it becomes impossible to
collate and aggregate information. Comparative analysis is restricted in view
of the absence of comparable elements. It also points towards the other fact
that while the courts are working towards more efficient data management
systems, each court is a data island.
What follows below is a brief overview
of the data and some of our preliminary analysis. We began collecting data in
January 2015. Our records detail all cases that have been heard during the
period between January and May 2015. As of May 2015, we have information
for 5,86,924 cases in 10 High Courts. Of these
cases, 57.2 per cent are pending across the High Courts. This is an ongoing
process, and more records are added each day.
Figure 1. Cases and Pendency per
High Court
Of the total number of case records in
our database, 4.3 per cent have been pending for more than 10 years. Whereas
only 0.2 per cent of all cases in the High Court of Karnataka are older than 10
years, 10.6 per cent of all cases in High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad are
older than 10 years.
Figure 2. Number of Cases between January and
May 2015
The chart above
indicates the number of cases that have entered the High Courts since we
started collecting data, and how they have fared in the three months they have
been in the court. We find that more cases are pending than disposed of in the
period between January and May 2015. In every court, there are a number of
cases (indicated by the field ‘blank’) whose status (whether pending or
disposed) is not known because the website does not specify their current
status.
From January to May in the 10 courts, we
found that whereas 6,982 cases were admitted daily in the High Court of Gujarat,
only 320 cases (15 per cent) were disposed of.
Figure 3. Distribution of Civil and Criminal
Cases
We are also interested in understanding
what proportion of cases that enter each High Court are civil cases, and what
proportion criminal. The chart above gives this information. Of the total
number of cases in the database, nearly 60 per cent are civil and 22.9 per cent
are criminal. However, 16.3 per cent of the cases in our system remain
unclassified (as per the civil/criminal distinction). These are unclassified
because we do not have sufficient information on case types for some courts to
determine whether they are civil or criminal.[3]
We hope that this brief overview has
given you a sense of the kind of information we are working with. What will
follow in the coming weeks is more analysis, as well as data on six more High
Courts and several district courts that DAKSH is in the process of collecting.
[1] Court News, Vol IX, April–June 2014,
available online at http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/courtnews/2014_issue_2.pdf (accessed on 05 January 2014).
[2] Jessica
Pischko. 2014. ‘Punished for Being Poor: The Problem with Using Big Data in the
Justice System’, PS Mag, 18 August, available online at
http://www.psmag.com/politics-and-law/punished-poor-problem-using-big-data-justice-system-88651 (accessed on 14 July 2015).
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