This is due to practical limitations that have come up due to the pandemic.
New Delhi: The number of pending cases in the Supreme Court of India, which were on a decreasing trend, has started going up due to the practical limitations that have come up due to Covid-19.
As per the latest data, the number of pending cases in the Supreme Court, as on 1 May, was 67,898 which included 49,015 cases related to admission and 18,883 related to regular hearing.
The corresponding figure on 4 April was 67,279 that included 48,415 admission matters and 18,864 regular hearings. In the beginning of March, there were 66,727 cases that were pending in the Supreme Court, out of which 47,924 were related to admission, while 18,893 were regular hearing matters. When February began, the total pending matters were 66,072 in which, 47,136 were pending matters and 18,936 matters that were related to regular hearing.
When the year started, the total pending matters were 65,086 out of which 45,866 were admission matters and 19,220 regular hearing matters. The Supreme Court on 23 March 2020, two days before the national lockdown was imposed, had started the practice of hearing the matters through video-conferencing. Apart from starting the process of virtual hearing, it also cut down on the number of judges sitting in court and the number of cases that it was taking up daily. In a statement issued on 10 August 2020 on the completion of 100 days’ virtual court system, the Supreme Court stated that it had set up 1,021 benches which held over 15,000 hearings in matters argued by 50,475 advocates during which as many as 4,300 cases through video-conferencing mode were decided.
This was done despite the fact that about 125 members of “Registry staff and their immediate family members also got infected with the virus”, the statement read.
In December 2020, the pending matters before the Supreme Court was 64,426, out of which admission matters constituted 45,829 while 19,146 were regular hearing matters.
In September 2020, the numbers of pending matters were 62,054. The figure for June 2020 was 60,628, which was 60,469 as on 1 March 2020. When 2020 started, the number of pending cases in the apex court was 59,859.
The figures for 2019 clearly shows that the numbers of pending cases were increasing at a very slow rate due to the fact that regular hearings were taking more and judgments being delivered. At the start of December 2019, the numbers of pending cases were 59,535 out of which 39,092 were admission matters and 20,443 matters of regular hearing. In September, the pending matters were 59,616. Of these, 38,473 were admission matters, while 21,143 were regular hearing cases. The pending cases in the beginning of June were 58,669, out of which 37,755 were admission matters and 20,914 regular hearing cases. In March 2019, the corresponding numbers were 57,785 of which 36,810 were admission matters and 20,975 matters of regular hearing. When 2019 started, the number of pending cases was 57,345, which, as of now, are almost 68,000.