Supreme Court's bench of Chief Justice Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra passed an order refusing to entertain a writ petition instituted under Article 32 of the Constitution of India which was filed by one Madan Gopal Agarwal for justice. The petitioner had sought the clearance of all pending cases before the Supreme Court within 12 months, the High Courts within 18 months and District Courts within 30 months. The Bench dismissed his petition. The petitioner who appeared in person had submitted that twenty countries have implemented a time limit for the disposal of cases.
Dr. Chandrachud observed, "We are not the American Supreme Court. How many cases does the American Supreme Court deal with in a year? Do you know that? All 17 Benches of the Supreme Court probably deal with more cases in one day than the American Supreme Court deals with in an entire year. Every day I get a log of how many cases have been disposed of. We dispose of in one day more cases than what all the Western courts dispose of in the whole year."
Notably, National Judicial Data Grid reveals that as of October 18, 2024, the Supreme Court has 82,397 cases pending, out of which 27,675 are less than one year old.
Over 60 lakh cases are pending in the High Courts. Out of which 4.5 lakh cases are less than one year old. In the trial Courts, 4.5 crore cases are pending.
There are 1,98,905 cases pending in the Patna High Court. Out of which 1,06,074 are civil cases and 92,831 are criminal cases. Out of which total cases filed 130858 cases are more than one year old and of which 74762 are civil cases and 56096 are criminal cases.
