*Over 2 lakh matters still pending in HC, Subordinate Courts
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 23: Despite numerous directions from the Apex Court of the country and resolutions adopted in Chief Justices’ Conference, the pendency of the cases in the High Court as well as Subordinate Courts of Jammu and Kashmir is increasing continuously and presently over 2 lakh cases including 31,000 more than five years old matters are still pending for disposal.
The denial of timely justice is generally considered as denial of justice itself as two are integral to each other. Moreover, the timely disposal of cases is essential for maintaining the rule of law and providing access to justice which is a guaranteed fundamental right.
However, the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir indicates that judicial system is unable to deliver timely justice because of huge backlog of cases. Further, in addition to the already backlogged cases, the system is not able to keep pace with the new cases being instituted as a result of which already severe problem of backlogs is getting exacerbated continuously leading to dilution of the constitutional guarantee of access to timely justice.
This can be gauged from the data of none else than the State High Court, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR. The data clearly indicates that institution of new cases is much more as compared to the disposal percentage as a result of which the pendency is increasing with every passing month.
As far as pendency of cases in both the wings of the High Court is concerned, a total of 58552 cases—53534 civil and 5018 criminal were pending at the beginning of July this year and during this month a total of 1244 fresh cases—1111 civil and 133 criminal cases were filed in both the wings of the High Court.
However, against 1244 fresh cases only 711 cases—684 civil and 27 criminal were disposed-off during the month. Due to this the pendency at the end of July was worked out at 59085 cases as against 58552 at the beginning of the month. As per the data, during this month there was increase of 0.91% in the pendency of the cases—0.79% in civil cases and 2.11% in criminal cases.
As far as disposal of cases which are more than five years old is concerned, only 215 such cases were disposed-off during July as a result of which pendency of cases which are more than five years old was worked out at 24693.
About Subordinate Courts, the data indicates that a total of 141910 cases were pending at the beginning of July and 4957 fresh cases were filed in different Subordinate Courts during this month. However, the disposal during the month was 4760 cases as a result of which pendency increased to 142107 at the end of July as against 141910 at the beginning of the month.
Due to this, there was 0.72% increase in pendency of civil cases as compared to previous month and only 0.16% decrease in the pendency of criminal cases vis-à-vis month of June this year. About more than five years old cases, the data indicates disposal of only 139 cases as a result of which 6888 cases remained un-disposed of by ending July.
As per the data, a total of 201192 cases have remained pending in High Court as well as Subordinate Courts of Jammu and Kashmir at the end of July while as the pendency of cases which are more than five years old was 31581.
“It is a matter of serious concern that instead of showing declining trend the pendency of cases in the High Court and Subordinate Courts of Jammu and Kashmir is increasing with every passing month”, official sources said, adding “in case this trend is not checked at the earliest the situation will worsen in near future”.
The prevailing situation is notwithstanding the fact that during Chief Justices’ Conference held early this year, it was resolved that High Courts shall assign top most priority for disposal of cases which are pending for more than five years and High Courts where arrears of cases pending for more than five years shall facilitate their disposal in mission mode.
The Chief Justices Conference had also resolved that High Courts shall progressively set a target of disposing-off cases pending for more than four years and while prioritizing the disposal of cases pending in the district courts for more than five years, additional incentives for the Judges of the district judiciary be considered where feasible and efforts be made for strengthening case-flow management rules.
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