More than 60 lakh cases are pending in the Supreme Court and the High Courts: What’s wrong with the Indian Judiciary?

By: Yash Gupte

As of March 21, 2023, there is no vacancy of judges in the Apex Court. In case of the High Courts against the sanctioned strength of 1,114 Judges, 785 Judges are working and 329 posts of Judges are vacant.

The Indian Judicial System is facing a number of problems today. But the major challenges faced by the judiciary are the shortage of judges in the different High Courts in the country and the increase in number of pending cases. The data on pendency of cases in the Supreme Court and High Courts and the vacancy of judges was given by the Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. As of March 21, 2023, there is no vacancy of judges in the Apex Court. In case of the High Courts against the sanctioned strength of 1,114 Judges, 785 Judges are working and 329 posts of Judges are vacant. The Government and the Supreme Court Collegium are now evaluating 119 of the High Court Collegium’s recommendations for these 329 vacancies, and recommendations for the remaining 210 positions have not yet been received from the High Court collegiums.

Talking about the collegium system, Instead of being established by a law passed by parliament or a clause in the constitution, the system for the appointment and transfer of judges has developed as a result of the rulings of the Supreme Court. The four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court make up the collegium, which is presided over by the Chief Justice of India. The Chief Justice of a High Court and the four other senior-most justices of that court serve as the collegium.

The executive branch of the government and the judiciary work together to appoint judges in the higher judiciary. It requires consultation and approval from various constitutional authorities. The executive branch and the judiciary work together to resolve disagreements, if any, in order to guarantee that only the most qualified person is chosen to the important constitutional position of a judge. Although every attempt is taken to quickly fill the open positions, there are still ongoing vacancies for judges in the High Courts owing to retirement, resignation, or promotion of the judges as well as a rise in the number of judges. Fifty Four Judges were appointed in Supreme Court of India, 893 fresh Judges were appointed in the various High Courts and 646 Additional Judges were appointed as Permanent Judges of High Courts from May 2014 to March 2023.

According to a report from June 2022, The Bombay High Court is facing an acute shortage of judges as nearly 40 percent of the posts are vacant. There are 5.88 lakh cases pending before the Bombay High Court. According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), there are 5.88 lakh cases pending before the Bombay High Court of which 1.14 lakh fresh cases were filed in the last one year and more than 16,000 criminal cases are pending for more than 10 years. Out of the total cases pending in the Courts across the country, nearly 1,82,000 cases have been pending for over 30 years.

Source: Supreme Court of India and National Judicial Data Grid

In the year 2020, there were 64,429 pending cases in the Supreme Court. The number of pending cases increased exponentially to 96,855 in 2021 but the number dropped to 69,588 in the previous year. This indicates that the Apex Court delivered judgments in more than 25,000 cases in a single year. One thing which needs to be looked upon here is that we all are aware of the famous quote- ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ but at the same time it is also important to understand that ‘Justice hurried is justice buried.’ Coming over to the High Courts, in 2021, 56,49,068 cases were pending in 25 High Courts across the country. This number in 2022 stands at 59,78,714. An increase of more than 3 lakhs. Talking about the pendency of cases in the subordinate cases, around 4 crore cases are pending. Over 4.7 crore cases are pending in courts across different levels of the judiciary.

The primary cause of this situation is the general lack of judges in India's high courts. In addition to the deficit, a major worry in subordinate courts is a lack of necessary infrastructure. At subordinate courts, there are more than 5,000 vacancies despite a sanctioned capacity of 24,490.

Numerous other factors, including i) an increase in the number of state and federal laws, (ii) an accumulation of first appeals, (iii) the continuation of ordinary civil jurisdiction in some High Courts, (iv) appeals against orders of quasi-judicial forums going to High Courts, (v) the number of revisions/appeals, (vi) frequent adjournments, and (vii) the indiscriminate use of writ jurisdiction, (viii) lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, tracking and bunching of cases for hearing, (ix) assigning work of administrative nature to the Judges, etc are the factors leading to pendency of cases.

The Allahabad High Court has the highest vacancy of Judges as 57 positions of Judges are lying vacant. The Allahabad High Court has the highest sanctioned strength of total 160 Judges.