NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal account for over 84 percent of the 20.3 lakh cases pending in lower courts which are more than a decade old, a latest Law Ministry data says.
According to data collated by the Department of Justice in the Law Ministry for Parliament and put out in public domain, as on December 31, 2015, 20.3 lakh cases were pending in various district and subordinate courts which are more than 10 years old.
Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal account for 84.7 per cent cases which are pending for over a decade.
Also, about 70 percent of the cases pending for a decade are criminal cases, while the rest are civil cases.
The e-Committee of Supreme Court had launched the National Judicial Data Grid to provide data on cases pending in the district courts across the country.
The data is segregated into civil and criminal cases and further broken down on the basis of the number of years the cases have been pending.
According to a note prepared by the Department of Justice for a high-level meeting on Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms held in February, usual attempts to reduce pendency include increasing the number of judges or creating additional benches, and while there is no disagreement that the number of judges does need to be increased, this cannot be the only measure to reduce the pendency.
"A linear formula applied across the different states without taking into consideration the actual reasons behind the delay as well the socio-economic factors of the different states is not going to be too effective in reducing pendency,"the government feels.
A total of nearly 3.1 crore cases, right from the Supreme Court down to the lower courts, are pending in Indian courts.