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NEWS ALERTS | Justice delivery by the high courts is slow, shows DAKSH data portal
Justice delivery by the high courts is slow, shows DAKSH data portal

Justice delivery by the high courts is slow, shows DAKSH data portal

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published Published on Apr 18, 2016   modified Modified on Apr 25, 2016

Publicly available data collected and collated by the civil society organization DAKSH under the Rule of Law Project shows that in the 21 high courts of India, the average pendency of cases is over 3 years i.e. 1,141 days, as on 11 April, 2016.

The oldest case in a high court has been pending since 1 January, 1958, which indicates the extent of delay in getting justice in India.

The 21 high courts of the country at present faces about 19.39 lakh active cases, and nearly 95 lakh hearings so far have taken place, as on 11 April, 2016.

The Rule of Law Project, under which DAKSH (http://dakshlegal.in/) is collaborating with the Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance (CLPG) of the National Law University (Delhi), has found that at the national-level, the average pendency is highest in the High Court of Allahabad (1,349 days), followed by the High Court of Gujarat (1,221 days) and the High Court of Patna (1,065 days). Please check chart 1.

Chart 1: Average number of days of pendency in various high courts (as on 11 April, 2016)
Pendency in High Courts

Source: DAKSH – Understanding Pendency, http://dakshlegal.in/

In the High Court of Sikkim, the average pendency is 346 days, which is the lowest among 21 high courts in India, as on 11 April, 2016.

From the data portal of DAKSH, one gets the number of pending cases in various high courts of India as per the number of years of pendency. For example, in the High Court of Gujarat, there are 6,940 cases that have been pending for less than 5 years, 11,274 cases that have been pending for 5-10 years, 85,240 cases that have been pending for 10-15 years, and 4,685 cases that have been pending for more than 15 years (as on 12 April, 2016).  

Among the 8 high courts analysed by DAKSH with its research partner, the average number of days in case disposal is highest in the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad (2,541 days) and lowest in the High Court of Madras (321 days). Please check chart 2.

Chart 2: Average no. of days to disposal (as on 11 April, 2016)
Average number of days to disposal

Source: DAKSH – Understanding Pendency, http://dakshlegal.in/

From the data portal of DAKSH, one gets the number of cases disposed of by various high courts of India as per the number of years it took to decide. For example, in the High Court of Orissa, there are 524 cases that have been settled in less than 5 years, 709 cases that have been settled in 5-10 years, 11,224 cases that have been settled in 10-15 years, and 380 cases that have been settled in more than 15 years.  

The average number of days in hearing lag is highest in the 'Tax Case' category (63 days), and lowest in the 'Civil Reference' as well as 'Writ Criminal' categories (both 18 days).

Among the 21 high courts, the average days between hearings is highest in the High Court of Delhi (82 days), followed by the High Court of Karnataka (78 days) and the High Court of Punjab and Haryana (72 days), as on 11 April, 2016.  

The number of cases in high courts of India has increased from 431 in 1981 to 67,810 in 2012.

It is worth mentioning that the CSO DAKSH has been collecting primary data from the publicly available daily cause lists of six High Courts – Karnataka, Hyderabad, Delhi, Madras, Gujarat, and Orissa since January, 2015. In May 2015, it began collecting information from eCourts.gov.in on cases pending in all the courts in two randomly chosen districts in every state.

References

DAKSH data portal,
http://zynata.com/base/src/index.html#/access/signin?porta
l=dakshlegal.in


High Court judges get just 5-6 minutes to decide cases, says study -Pradeep Thakur, The Times of India, 7 April, 2016, please click here to access

Judges do work hard, but pendency of cases is still very high, says Daksh study -Janaki Murali, FirstPost.com, 23 March, 2016, please click here to access

HCs taking 3 years on average to decide cases: Study -Pradeep Thakur, The Times of India, 22 March, 2016, please click here to access 

DAKSH Launches ‘Rule of Law Project’ to Help Evaluate Court Data, The New Indian Express, 19 December, 2015, please click here to access
 
‘District courts will take 10 years to clear cases’ -Rukmini S, The Hindu, 27 September, 2015, please click here to access 
 
Justice denied: Two charts show the enormity of the crisis of India's justice delayed system -Mayank Jain, Scroll.in, 21 September, 2015, please click here to access

SC launches portal on pendency of cases, The Hindu, 20 September, 2015, please click here to access
 
New database of High Courts unearths a 57-year-old case -Rukmini S, The Hindu, 4 May, 2015, please click here to access
 
 
Image Courtesy: Shambhu Ghatak


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