Jammu, Jan 18: Whilst political bickering continues over government formation in Jammu and Kashmir, there are lakhs of people who are more perturbed over pendency of court cases in the state.
Till September last year, 99,353 civil and 7,629 criminal cases were pending in the state's highest court. What's even more shocking is that of the pending cases, 5,944 (civil) and 171 (criminal) are pending for more than 10 years; while 25,662 (civil) and 751 (criminal) are 5 to 10 years old.
Providing an insight into the work load of the Courts at different levels and the work accomplished by them in J&Ķ, a report released by the High Court reveals that 3,12,759 cases are pending in the Jammu and Kashmir high court and subordinate courts.
According to Zafar Shah, valley's renowned constitutional expert, even though there are many reasons as to why a staggering 3,12,759 cases are pending including the ‘uncertainty over the situation of valley’, often strikes and shut-down too play there part.
The report released by the high court on January 4 states that by the end of September 30 last year, 1,06,982 cases were pending in the state’s highest court, including 99,353 civil and 7,629 are of criminal nature.
Pendency of cases in subordinate courts
Total cases pending 2,05,777 cases
Civil Cases 84,090
Criminal Cases 1,21,687
Cases pending for more than a decade 1,246 (civil) and 894 (criminal) cases
Cases pending (5-10 yrs old 4,532 (civil) and 6,737 (criminal) cases
Overview of bottlenecks
Pertinently in December last year, a report by Indiaspend.com, India's first database journalism initiative stated that as per the rate at which cases are disposed by Jammu and Kashmir courts, all pending cases could take 64 years to be resolved.
As many as 4,014 (civil) and 1,491 (criminal) cases who have been stayed by the Supreme Court of India while 1,844 (civil) and 1,159 (criminal) cases have been stayed in subordinate courts, high court report says.
Delving further, the official data also states that 8,019 (civil) and 532 (criminal) cases have been disposed of by the high court from 1 January to 3 September last year while the number of cases decided by subordinate courts during same time include 43,865 civil and 2,07,176 criminal cases. “The data also provides a platform for assessing infrastructure requirements for smooth running of the Court business,” it added.
“Lack of support from government to cases cleared on fast track basis is not happening, more judges need to be appointment of judges also non implementation of court orders by government agencies are the major reasons,” Shah tells iamin.
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