83 thousand cases pending in Supreme Court: This is the highest number ever; 5 crore cases pending in High Court and Trial Court also

There are 82,831 cases pending in the Supreme Court, the highest court of the country. This is the highest number of pending cases ever. Only 27,604 pending cases have been registered in the last one year. According to a Times of India report, 38,995 new cases were filed in the Supreme Court in 2024. Out of which 37,158 cases were disposed of. The number of pending cases has increased 8 times in the last 10 years. Pending cases have decreased in 2015 and 2017. In 2014, there were a total of 41 lakh pending cases in the High Court, which has now increased to 59 lakh. Pending cases have decreased only once in the last 10 years. In 2014, there were 2.6 crore cases pending in trial courts, which is now 4.5 crore. Reduction in pending cases due to introduction of paperless system In 2013, the number of pending cases in the Supreme Court increased from 50 thousand to 66 thousand. However, in the following year 2014, during the tenure of Chief Justices P Satashivam and RM Lodha, the number of pending cases decreased to 63 thousand. Over the next year, 4,000 cases fell to 59,000. In 2017, Justice JS Khehar proposed a paperless court in case management system. This led to faster disposal of cases and reduced the number of pending cases to 56,000. However, in 2018 the pending cases rose once again to 57,000. The number of judges in the Supreme Court increased twice, but the cases did not decrease. In 2009, the number of judges in the Supreme Court was increased from 26 to 31. However, even after this the number of pending cases did not decrease. In 2019, during the tenure of CJI Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the government increased the number of judges from 31 to 34 under the Parliamentary Act. Even after this the number of cases has increased from 57,000 to 60,000. The covid epidemic also affected the Supreme Court In 2020, the covid epidemic also affected the justice delivery system of the Supreme Court. Justice SA Bobde was the CJI at that time. Although the virtual proceedings took place after some time, the number of pending cases has increased to 65,000. Even in 2021, the proceedings of the Supreme Court were affected due to Covid. Due to this, the pending cases increased to 70,000 and by the end of 2022 this number will increase to 79,000. During this period CJI Ramana and UU Lalit retired in the same year. After this, Justice DY Chandrachud became the CJI.

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