Orissa High Court records 133 per cent clearance rate of cases in 2022

CUTTACK: The overall disposal rate of cases in Orissa High Court went up by over 133 per cent in 2022 compared to 81 per cent the previous year. However, despite a significant rise in the clearance rate, the backlog of cases continues to be high in the court.  

This year, the high court functioned in hybrid mode - both virtual or video conference and physical. Owing to the rise in disposal rate, the number of pending cases went down from 1,96,662 on January 1 to 1,6,310 by December 23.  While 1,02, 247 cases were instituted during this period, a whopping 1,36,599 were disposed of till the winter holidays, a high court release said.

During the year, 8,769 more than 10-year-old cases were disposed of, the release stated. Official records indicate 93,138 cases were disposed of in 2019. The number of cases disposed of went down to 61,335 in 2020 but rose to 1,05,334 in 2021.

The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) data on Orissa High Court on Thursday revealed that in November, 5,377 cases were instituted whereas 12,325 cases were disposed of. Over 66,806 cases are pending for more than five years and these constitute 40 per cent of the total backlog.

A total of 30,415 cases which constitute 18.56 per cent of the total backlog are pending for more than 10 years. Of them, as many as 5,514 cases have been pending for more than 20 years and 915 for more than 30 years.

Of the total 1,63,859 pending cases, 1,21,464 are civil and the rest criminal. Of them, around 73,185 are in the category of writ petitions, as to the latest statistics available from the NJDG data. Writ petitions are filed in the high court under article 226 when any fundamental rights are violated. Criminal cases involve appeals against lower court orders on cases that involve an action that is harmful to society. Civil cases involve appeals against lower court orders relating to private disputes between persons and organisations.

In 2021, the working strength of judges in the high court increased from 15 to 18 against sanctioned strength of 27. The sanctioned strength and working strength were increased to 33 and 21 respectively in February this year.