Surge in number of pending cases in metropolitan court in last 3 yrs, says RTI reply

The number of criminal cases that were disposed off in the metropolitan magistrate court in the city have dipped in the last few years, according to a reply given to RTI applicant Chetan Kothari. The drop has been consistent for the past three years.

The only exceptional surge in the number of cases disposed off was in 2010 as compared to 2009. In 2009, 3,20,333 cases were disposed off in the court. The number surged to 4,01,604 cases in 2010.

Since then however, the cases have been dropping steadily. While the cases disposed off in 2011 fell to 3,82,226 in 2012, out of 3,49,116 cases in 2013, only 2,19,842 were disposed off.

Kothari had also asked for the number of cases pending and the details of the pending time. As per the details provided, the number of cases that were pending dropped marginally despite the number of cases being disposed off going down.

As on April, the number of cases pending were 3,65,748, which reduced to 3,65,418. The number of cases in 2011 and 2012 that were pending for more than 10 years were over 10 %. In 2013, 48,079 were pending, while in 2014, the number was 43,647.

Time taken for most pending cases in 2013 were recorded between two to five years. The figure stood at 1,00,676 in 2013. In 2014, the most number of cases were a year old. This figure stood at 1,07,038 until March 31, 2014.

"I think the only people who benefit when cases are not decided are lawyers. More fast track cases need to be put up so that cases can be tried earlier. That will give a lot of reprieve to the citizens, otherwise due to the long wait, people may face more problems and difficulties," said Kothari.