672,000 cases pending in district, subordinate courts for 20 yrs: Rijiju

Nearly 6.72 lakh cases are pending in various district and subordinate courts for more than 20 years, government told Lok Sabha on Friday.

In case of High Courts, there are 2,94,547 such cases.

In a written reply, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said, "The number of cases pending for more than 20 years in the Supreme Court of India, as per the data retrieved from the Integrated Case Management Information System (ICMIS) as on January 27, 2023, is 208 cases."

"In case of the (25) high courts, there are 2,94,547 cases and 6,71,543 cases in the district and subordinate courts that are pending for more than 20 years as per data available on National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) on February 01, 2023," he said.

So far as the reasons for such long pendency of court cases is concerned, the Supreme Court has stated that there is no conspicuous reason which can be depicted for long pendency of cases, he said.

"Pendency of court cases is a multi-faceted problem. Due to the increase in the population of the country and awareness of their rights amongst the public, filing of fresh cases is also increasing with leaps and bounds year after year," Rijiju said.