G J Advani Law College Library

Monday, May 20, 2013

75k cases pending in sessions court

80 Judges Sanctioned, But Only 21 Heard Matters Last Year

Nitin Yeshwantrao TNN

Thane: More than 64,000 civil cases and over 11,000 criminal cases were pending in the Mumbai civil and sessions court by December 2012 due to absence of judicial officials, says a performance report compiled by the state law and judiciary department.
    While the prolonged adjournments and the length of the trial has raised questions over the justice delivery, a look at the report suggests that the Mumbai sessions court is struggling with complex cases due to scarcity of judges.
    As against the sanctioned strength of 80, the Mumbai sessions court has a mere 21 judges, who dealt with matters for 235 days during 2012, reveals the document. This disparity has contributed to the record-low disposal of cases till December 2012—19% for civil cases and 67% for criminal cases.
    Of the 80,554 civil litigations pending trial in 2012, the Mumbai sessions court disposed a mere 19% or 15,591 cases by December 2012. Put simply, the remaining 64,000-plus cases would be carried forward in 2013 and the numbers will swell with addition of this year’s fresh cases.
    Experts attributed the rise in civil litigations to growing property disputes in metros and semi-urban townships and to the archaic revenue and land laws that contribute to the mounting civil cases pile.
    But, the disposal of criminal cases in the Mumbai court, in comparison, appears better as verdict was given in 24,217 of the 35,644 cases on trial during 2012, taking the disposal rate to 67%.
    Attributing the high pendency to inadequate strength of judges, advocate Arti Kalekar said quality of rulings could be affected given the pressure on judges for speedy trial and disposal.
    Conversely, the disposal rate of criminal and civil cases reached a new high of 54% in the Thane sessions court by the 2012-end. Judgments were pronounced in 39% civil cases here by December last year.
    The police expressed confidence in the Thane district court as “cases are expeditiously dealt with and convictions/ acquittals are pronounced in one-two years”.
    Of the 36,644 pending criminal cases, 19,938 were disposed of by 2012-end in the Thane sessions court. On the civil side, the disposal was a good 39% with judgments given in 37,751 of the 96,851 cases.