CHENNAI: The Court Case Monitoring System (CCMS), an IT-based application to monitor cases pending against departments of State government or officials, has revealed that a total of nearly 19,000 court cases are still pending in the High Court.The CCMS, which was created after more than 20,000 contempt of court petitions piled up against Tamil Nadu government officials in the Madras High Court and Madurai Bench between 2010 and February 16, 2014, reveals that of the 19,000 cases, counters have yet to be filed in 13,000 cases.
The School Education and Transport departments have the maximum number of pending cases. The School department has 2,957 such cases, of which counter hasn’t yet been filed in 1,590. Similarly, the Transport department has 2,292 cases pending, with 2,146 still awaiting counters.
The CCMS did not take on record backdated cases that were pending prior to the petition filed by KK Ramesh, managing trustee of Madurai-based Tamil Nadu Centre for Public Interest Litigation, said sources.
The Housing and Urban Development departments have only 751 pending cases, of which counters have not been filed in 175. This despite the fact that the Madras High Court rapped the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, which also comes under the Housing department, for the huge backlog of cases in the courts.
According to a recent audit report, more than 8,000 cases pertaining to the CMDA are pending in various courts, including the Madras High Court, from 2000. Most of the cases pertain to service matters, unauthorised constructions, land acquisitions, CMDA project-related cases and writ petitions.
According to CCMS data, the Home, Prohibition and Excise Department has 1,338 pending cases in the Madras High Court while the Municipal Administration and Water Supply department has 1,237. Similarly, the Finance and Health departments have 1,214 and 1,188 cases pending before the courts, respectively.
Factfile
Agriculture Dept
Writ petitions: 485
Writ appeals: 9
SLP: 2 | Review of SLP: 0
Environment & Forest
Writ petitions: 475
Writ appeals: 0
SLP: 1 | Review of SLP: 0
Finance
Writ petitions: 1214
Writ appeals: 1
SLP: 0 | Review of SLP: 0
Health & Family
Welfare
Writ petitions: 1188
Writ appeals: 11
SLP: 1 | Review of SLP: 0
Home, Prohibition and Excise
Writ petitions: 1338
Writ appeals: 0
SLP: 0 | Review of SLP: 0
Municipal Admin and Water supply
Writ petitions: 1237
Writ appeals: 0
SLP: 1 | Review of SLP: 0
School Education
Writ petitions: 2920
Writ appeals: 37
SLP: 0 | Review of SLP: 0
Transport
Writ petitions: 2292
Writ appeals: 0
SLP: 0 | Review of SLP: 0