Backlog cases in Orissa High Court goes up to 1.61 lakh

CUTTACK: Over 46,600 cases are pending for more than five years in the Orissa High Court, according to statistics available from the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

This marks a fall of 28.89 per cent (pc) in the more than five-year-old cases against 63,000 cases recorded in this category in August last year.

However, the total number of pending cases has gone up by 8.24 pc from 1,49,248 to 1,61,553 during the period.

The more than five-year-old cases constitute 42.23 pc of the total cases pending in the High Court. Of the total cases, 1,12,663 are civil and 48,890 are criminal.

Civil cases involve appeals against lower court orders related to private disputes between persons and organisations. Similarly, criminal cases involve appeals against lower court orders on cases that involve an action that is considered to be harmful to society as a whole.

According to the NJDG data, 28,347 cases have been pending for more than 10 years in the High Court, lengthening litigants’ suffering of waiting for justice from the judiciary.

Of the 28,347 cases pending for more than a decade, 4,425 cases have been pending for more than 20 years, 691 of which are more than 30 years old.

In June, 4,822 cases were instituted and of which, 3,733 were disposed during the month. Of those disposed cases, 21,68 were civil and 1,565 were criminal. The backlog is attributed primarily to inadequate number of judges.

High Court lawyers said more than 40 pc of the posts have mostly remained vacant for several years. At present, there are 16 judges against a sanctioned strength of 27, they said.

Five judges have been appointed in the last five years and three months. The last appointment of a judge in the High Court was made in June this year.