Even in normal times, the Indian judicial system has a staggering backlog of cases. The coronavirus pandemic has made this worse. This yea...
Even in normal times, the Indian judicial system has a staggering backlog of cases. The coronavirus pandemic has made this worse.
This year, the number of cases disposed by courts has plummeted, according to data from the National Judicial Data Grid, an online resource maintained by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice.
The average number of cases disposed every month by High Courts has fallen by 50%, while subordinate courts have seen an even sharper drop by 70%.
Data is not available for the Supreme Court of India. But, according to analysis by the Supreme Court Observer, a legal archives website, the court delivered just 355 orders in April 2020, a fraction of the 10,586 orders delivered in April 2018 and 12,084 orders in April 2019.
Pandemic impact
India went under complete lockdown on March 24 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Supreme Court discontinued normal functioning and decided to take up only urgent matters. The hearings moved to video conferencing, with the court slowly ramping up the number of cases heard over the last five months.
Following the footsteps of the Supreme Court, the High Courts and subordinate courts too moved work to video conferencing. Like the Supreme Court, several High Court, despite protests in states like Assam, have...
