Are more fresh filings causing judicial pendency?

Are more fresh filings causing judicial pendency? 

By Surya Prakash B S 

Have the number of cases filed in courts gone up so substantially as to be the main reason for the backlog of cases in courts? In the opinion of Justice Gopala Gowda, that is indeed so.

Speaking at the Lok Adalat organised by the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority on 12 December, Justice Gowda remarked, ‘The judiciary is not responsible for cases not being resolved in a timely manner.  The government is not establishing courts in proportion to the increase in population and cases filed. Disposal of cases is being delayed due to this. The courts and judges are doing an excellent job in the disposal of cases. If there were an increase in courts appropriate to the increase in filings then there would be no question of judicial delays at all.” (as reported in the Kannada daily, Prajavani, on 13 December 2015).

So we asked ourselves: Is there really an increase in filings? And if yes, at what rate is it increasing?

Here are three time trends from the last updated data reported in ‘Court News’ reported by the Supreme Court ( can accessed here http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/courtnews.htm). 

In the Supreme Court

Figure 1: Trend of fresh filings and disposal in the Supreme Court over 10 quarters

Table 1: No. of fresh filings and disposal at the Supreme Court during the quarter:

	Q112	Q212	Q312	Q412	Q113	Q213	Q313	Q413	Q114	Q214
Fresh filings	21,706	15,187	22,403	17,621	21,342	15,551	22,813	17,036	22,287	22,459
Disposal	20,409	11,152	21,604	15,579	20,714	13,425	25,656	17,290	24,306	20,819

In the High Courts

Figure 2: Trend of fresh filings and disposal in the High Courts over 10 quarters

Table 2: No. of fresh filings and disposal at the High Courts during the quarter:

	Q4 11	Q1 12	Q2 12	Q3 12	Q4 12	Q1 13	Q2 13	Q3 13	Q4 13	Q1 14
Fresh Filings	4,58,885	4,79,042	4,40,324	5,31,292	4,63,103	4,95,746	4,88,186	5,60,889	4,53,438	5,08,727
Disposals	4,07,265	4,64,312	3,82,189	5,10,841	4,34,049	4,37,176	3,94,487	4,98,202	4,22,947	4,86,115

In the sub-ordinate courts

Figure 3: Trend of fresh filings and disposal in the Subordinate Courts over 10 quarters

Table 3: No. of fresh filings and disposal at the Subordinate Courts during the quarter:

	Q4 11	Q1 12	Q2 12	Q3 12	Q4 12	Q1 13	Q2 13	Q3 13	Q4 13	Q1 14
Fresh filings	41,46,123	43,37,836	44,66,303	48,82,975	44,33,166	43,50,524	44,52,506	47,36,967	51,28,312	48,66,618
Disposed Cases	44,00,718	44,82,366	43,18,734	50,44,185	43,11,269	43,88,859	40,75,708	44,19,310	58,55,480	43,44,835

As can be seen from the charts, there has been some increase in the fresh cases being filed at all levels.

In the Supreme Court there has been a 3% increase of filings in Q2 ’14 as compared with filings in Q1 ’12. In the High Courts there have been a 10% increase of filings in Q1 ’14 as compared with filings in Q4 ’11.  And in the Subordinate Courts there have been a 17% increase of filings in Q1 ’14 as compared with filings in Q4 ’11. 

Clearly the level of increase is not drastic. In fact, the disposal level too seems to follow the trend of fresh filings. Therefore the rate of increase in the fresh filings does not appear to be the chief cause of judicial pendency.  Or rather it can not be said to be the only cause. 

Practitioners and scholars alike have pointed out may factors like management of court diary, too many adjournments, lack of judges, etc., that contribute to the pendency  problem. Understanding the chief causes for the steady worsening of the judicial pendency situation needs a closer scrutiny of the day to day operations of the judiciary.

(With inputs from Krithika Gururaj, student of Master in Public Policy programme at the Crawford School of Public Policy)