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Maharashtra government to hire 179 judges to clear mountain of cases

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With the Maharashtra government on November 18 sanctioning 179 additional posts of judges, there seems to be hope of reducing the massive backlog of pending cases in the city's courts, which is more than 3.65 lakh as on March 2014.

The number of judges in the state will rise from the existing 1,781 to 1,960. The government has also sanctioned 759 posts of support staff for the additional judges.

This development comes in compliance with a Bombay high court order. The HC had directed the government to appoint more judges in pursuance to a Supreme Court judgment in the case of Brijmohan v. Union of India. In this 2012 case, the SC had asked all the states to increase the judges' posts by an additional 10%.

As per information received under the Right to Information (RTI) by activist Chetan Kothari, there are a total of 3,65,418 cases pending in various magistrate courts across Mumbai as on March 31 this year. Of these, around 43,647 cases were more than 10 years old while 72,047 cases were pending for over five years.

The RTI reply also states that last year a total of 2,19,842 cases were disposed of, while in 2012, the number of disposed cases was 3,49,116.

"High pendency of cases has always been an issue. With increasing litigation, there was a need for more judges to dispose of the cases faster. Hopefully, now the disposal rate of cases will be speedier," said advocate Jamshed Mistry.

The state government has sanctioned Rs 48.41 crore for the additional posts and support staff, read the cabinet decision.

State government statistics say that lower courts have over 56,000 pending cases of crimes against women. Of these, 11,074 cases are pending with the sessions court and 45,057 with the magistrates' courts.

There are nearly 90,000 cases of motor accident claims, say the government stats.

Moreover, 3,768 pending cases pertain to crime against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, while 3,336 cases were lodged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The HC order was passed while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Vihar Durve seeking that the government should be directed to implement the SC order and accordingly increase the posts of judges in the state.

The PIL sought the establishment of additional fast track courts to try cases of crime against women, which are on the rise.

Government's apathy towards the judiciary reflects in the fact that since May 2010, the HC has been exchanging communications with the state on the matter, but the government kept raising queries about the appointments.

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