32.45 Million Cases Pending In India; 10% Over 10 Years Old : Justice Chandrachud Shares NJDG Statistics

Justice D Y Chandrachud, judge of the Supreme Court, on Sunday shared data from the National Judicial Data Grind(NJDG) on the pendency of cases in India.

Total number of pending cases is 32.45 million in India, as of May 24. 9.045 million are civil cases and 23.39 million are criminal cases.

32% of those cases are less than one year old.

28% cases fall in the category of cases pending for one to three years.

15% cases fall in the category of three to five years pendency.

Again, 15.28% cases belong to the classes of cases which are five to ten years old.

7.1% cases have been pending for the period between 10 to 20 years.

In the category to cases pending between 20 to 30 years, there are 1.28% cases.

0.26% cases are older than 30 years.

"Technology tells us which is the part of the pyramid we have to attack first", Justice Chandrachud said. The priority will be deal with the cases which are older than ten years, he said. 

Data of cases filed during pandemic

The judge also shared the date of cases filed in the last one month during the pandemic.

3049 civil cases and 90,742 criminal cases were filed during this period.

Out of these, 832 civil cases and 40,095 criminal cases were disposed.

He said that the NJDG has data of 98.20 million disposed of cases ( 27.35 million civil cases and 70.85 million criminal cases).

The NJDG also has data from courts of 633 districts in the country. There are  8230 court complexes across the nation, in which 19,794 judicial officers are working.

Data of total 133.24 million cases, which include both pending and disposed of cases are available.

119.68 million orders have been uploaded. 

The above statistics were shared by Justice Chandrachud while talking at a Webinar organized by 'Nyaya Forum' of NALSAR University of Law on the topic "Future of Virtual Courts and Access to Justice in India".

The NJDG keeps details of cases at original, appellate and execution stages, he informed. Statistics regarding pendency of cases type-wise and state-wise are also maintained.