Parliament Question: Pending cases in courts

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4446 ANSWERED ON - 02/04/2026 PENDING CASES IN COURTS

4446. # SHRI MADAN RATHORE:

Will the Minister of Law and Justice be pleased to state:

(a) whether Government is taking special measures to reduce the number of pending cases in courts;

(b) the number of pending cases at present, High Court-wise, including Rajasthan;

(c) the reforms undertaken to expedite judicial processes; and

(d) whether any new scheme is in place for digitization of courts? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE; AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (SHRI ARJUN RAM MEGHWAL)

(a): The disposal of the cases is within the exclusive domain of judiciary. However, the Government is fully committed for speedy disposal of cases and reducing pendency as mandated under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Government has taken several initiatives to provide an ecosystem for faster disposal of cases by the judiciary which, inter-alia, includes amalgamation of latest technologies for increasing access to justice and greater transparency under the e-Courts Mission Mode Project and supplementing of the resources of the State Governments/UTs for providing suitable infrastructure facilities for the District and Subordinate Judiciary under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary.

(b): As per information available on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), the total number of pending cases, as on 25.03.2026, the High Court-wise, including Rajasthan is at Annexure.

(c): The Government of India has undertaken various reforms to expedite judicial processes: i. The Digital Justice System under the e-Courts Mission Mode Project has expedited and simplified judicial processes and has also improved transparency and accessibility in the justice delivery system.

ii. Under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme namely Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) Scheme, 774 Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) including 398 exclusive POCSO

(ePOCSO) Courts are functional across 29 States/UTs for the expeditious disposal of pending cases of Rape and POCSO Act, and have collectively disposed of 3,71,849 cases since their inception, as on 31.01.2026. The financial outlay under the scheme is Rs.

11952.23 crore with Rs. 1207.24 crore as Central Share to be incurred from Nirbhaya Fund on the CSS pattern. The Central Government, as on 27.03.2026, has released a total amount of Rs. 1,234.55 crore to States/UTs for the operationalization of FTSCs since the inception of the Scheme in 2019.

iii. Arrears Committees have been set up in all 25 High Courts and the District Courts as well to clear cases pending for more than five years. iv. The Government has also amended The Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Act, 2018, The Commercial Courts (Amendment) Act, 2018, The Specific Relief (Amendment) Act, 2018, The Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019 and The Criminal Laws

(Amendment) Act, 2018 with a view to reduce pendency. v. Alternate Dispute Resolution methods have been promoted. The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 was amended in August, 2018 making Pre-institution Mediation and Settlement

(PIMS) mandatory in case of commercial disputes. Amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 has been made by the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act 2015 for expediting the speedy resolution of disputes by prescribing timelines.

vi. Lok Adalat is an important Alternative Disputes Resolution Mechanism available to common people, where the disputes/ cases pending in the court of law or at pre-litigation stage are settled/ compromised amicably. Under The Legal Services Authorities (LSA) Act, 1987, an award made by a Lok Adalat is deemed to be a decree of a civil court and is final and binding on all parties and no appeal lies against it before any court. National Lok Adalats are organized simultaneously in all Taluks, Districts and High Courts on a pre- fixed date.

vii. Further, the Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice, has framed the 'Directive for the Efficient and Effective Management of Litigation by Government of India', which is an integrated approach in reinforcing the goal of good governance and ensuring public welfare and timely dispensation of justice. The Directive seeks to introduce effective measures to simplify legal processes, prevent unnecessary litigation, address inconsistencies in notifications and orders, minimize unwarranted appeals, streamline inter-departmental coordination in litigation, ensure greater public accountability in arbitration matters, and establish a strong Knowledge Management System (KMS) to improve overall efficiency. The Department of legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice has also developed the Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS), a web-based portal designed to effectively monitor court cases involving the Union of India.

These measures are to proactively take action towards disposal of all pending court cases.

(d): The eCourts Mission Mode Project, under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), represents one of the most significant initiatives to modernize the Indian judiciary through technology. It seeks to make justice delivery faster, more transparent and accessible to all citizens. The project is being implemented in phases under the joint partnership of the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice and the eCommittee of the Supreme Court of India, in close coordination with the respective High Courts.

The Government has demonstrated its commitment in modernizing judiciary with advanced digital infrastructure by significantly increasing the budget of Phase III (2023–2027) to ₹7,210 crore. This phase envisions transforming Indian courts into Digital and Paperless Courts by digitizing legacy and current case records, expanding video conferencing to all courts, jails and hospitals and extending online courts beyond traffic violations. It also aims for universal saturation of eSewa Kendras, creation of a state-of-the-art cloud-based data repository for storing digitized court records and applications and deployment of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for case analysis and forecasting.

2Currently, over 660.36 crore pages of court records have been digitized and 2,444 eSewa Kendras have been established to enhance citizen service delivery. Courts have conducted over

3.97 crore hearings through video conferencing facilities. Approximately 1.07 cr. cases have been filed electronically through the eFiling platform. Live streaming of court proceedings has expanded to four additional High Courts, Uttarakhand, Calcutta, Telangana and Meghalaya, making it 11. All eCourts portals are now hosted on the NIC’s cloud infrastructure and district court websites have been migrated to the Secure, Scalable and Sugamya Website as a Service

(S3WAAS) platform.

Further, the Case Information System (CIS) has been upgraded to version 4.0, introducing enhanced objectivity, transparency and speed in case management. Advanced AI-based tools are being integrated into judicial workflows, such as the AI/ML-enabled defect identification module developed by the Supreme Court in collaboration with IIT Madras and the Legal Research and Analysis Assistant (LegRAA) developed by NIC’s Centre of Excellence under the guidance of the eCommittee. The Digital Courts platform enables judges to access all case-related documents, pleadings and evidence digitally, marking a significant leap toward a paperless court ecosystem.

**** 3ANNEXURE STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PART (B) OF RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4446 FOR ANSWER ON 02.04.2026 REGARDING ‘PENDING CASES IN COURTS’ Number of pending cases in High Courts, as on 25.03.2026 Sr. No Name of High Court No. of pending cases 1 Allahabad High Court 12,26,425 2 Bombay High Court 6,61,062 3 Calcutta High Court 2,03,784 4 Gauhati High Court 64,575 5 High Court for State of Telangana 2,36,783 6 High Court of Chhattisgarh 75,525 7 High Court of Rajasthan 6,76,609 8 High Court of Andhra Pradesh 2,48,733 9 High Court of Delhi 1,26,647 10 High Court of Gujarat 1,73,459 11 High Court of Himachal Pradesh 1,04,070 12 High Court of Jammu and Kashmir 43,472 13 High Court of Jharkhand 72,532 14 High Court of Karnataka 3,31,494 15 High Court of Kerala 2,47,553 16 High Court of Madhya Pradesh 4,76,074 17 High Court of Manipur 6,060 18 High Court of Meghalaya 1,791 19 High Court of Punjab and Haryana 4,18,735 20 High Court of Sikkim 302 21 High Court of Tripura 1,389 22 High Court of Uttarakhand 61,083 23 Madras High Court 5,55,758 24 Orissa High Court 1,63,859 25 Patna High Court 2,18,963 Total 63,96,737

Source: National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) 4