By IANS,
New Delhi: The government is periodically reviewing the strength of judges in high courts across the country and filling up vacancies to solve the heavy backlog of cases, Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said Monday in parliament.
“On the basis of these reviews, 163 posts of judges have been created in various high courts. The strength of judges in the Supreme Court has also been increased from 26 to 31,” the minister said in the Rajya Sabha.
In a written reply, the minister said the Allahabad High Court has the highest number of pending cases at 911,858.
The Madras High Court has 451,496 pending cases, the Bombay High Court has 369,978 and the Calcutta High Court has 300,473 such cases. There are about 70,000 cases pending in the Delhi High Court.
The situation in northeast states was comparatively better with 62,110 pending cases in the Gauhati High Court while in the Sikkim High Court had only 80 cases pending till 2007, the minister said.
Uttar Pradesh had the highest number – over 5.1 million – cases pending in the subordinate courts while Lakshadweep had the lowest with just 156 cases in 2008.
As per the information received from the Registry of the Supreme Court, 50,659 cases were pending in the apex court as of June 1 this year, he added.