NEW DELHI: To monitor pendency of cases across all ministries, the Ministry of Law and Justice is all set to put in place a centralised online portal to keep watch on the ongoing cases against each government department with more emphasis on withdrawing unnecessary litigations from courts.Under this process, every ministry will be given a login ID and password to access the status of cases, latest orders, directions of court and filing of affidavits or reports.This online mechanism will ensure that various ministries do not adopt conflicting stands on the same issue before a court and do not face court’s ire for doing the same.
This will also help in reducing contempt cases against the government, which are large in numbers; some of them are due to delay in filing affidavits because of communication gaps between departments of various ministries.A common online platform has been the long-pending demand of several chief justices, who have been asking the Centre to take immediate steps to ensure that only minimal litigation between government departments and PSUs reach the court and stressing on the out-of-court-settlement of disputes to reduce pendency.
The online portal will cut down interdepartmental litigation, which is costing the government a loss of over Rs 50,000 crore annually. Such cases constitute 46 percent of the 3.2 crore cases pending in India.
Government litigation includes service matters, disputes with private entities, inter se disputes between two government departments and also that between two PSUs.The progress of each case—what happened on a particular date, stand adopted by the government, etc—will be available at the click of a button for the official.Out of a 3.2 crore pending cases in different courts across the country, pendency at the Supreme Court is 60,751 cases; those in the 24 High Courts account for 40 lakh and more than 2.74 crore cases are pending in the district and subordinate courts.
PILED UP
3.2 crore
pending cases
60,751
in Supreme Court
40 lakh
in high courts
2.74 crore
in district courts