Pendency of cases in SC has come down: Govt

The pendency of cases in the Supreme Court has come down from 62,791 in January this year to 61,016 as on July 29, Lok Sabha was informed today.
In a written reply, Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said the apex court disposed of 92,722 cases in 2014, 77,085 in 2013 and 68,744 in 2012.
Referring to the high courts, he said 41,53,957 cases were pending in 2014 as against 44,62,705 in 2013 and 44,34,191 in 2012.
In subordinate courts, the number of pending cases was 2,64,88,405 in 2014, he said.
"Some of the main factors responsible for pendency of cases in courts are increasing number of states and central legislations, accumulation of first appeals, continuation of ordinary civil jurisdiction in some of the high courts and vacancies of judges," he said.

Besides these, number of revisions/appeals, frequent adjournments, indiscriminate use of writ jurisdiction, lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearing also accounted for the pendency of cases, he said.
To a related question, Gowda said there is no proposal, at present, to increase the strength of judges of the Supreme Court or to increase their retirement age.