Pending cases in Indian courts have been a cause of massive worry. People wait for years which turn into decades, waiting for justice to be delivered.
Chief Justice of Indian Ranjan Gogoi said that more than two lakh cases are in courts for 25 years, while more than 1,000 cases have not been disposed of even after five decades.
Addressing a public function, Gogoi instructed Gauhati High Court Chief Justice (Acting) Arup Kumar Goswami to clear such long pending cases in Assam as soon as possible.
¡°In India, we have a little over one thousand 50-year- old cases and above two lakh 25-year old cases,¡± Gogoi said, as per a report by PTI.
He said that he has requested chief justices of various courts to finish trials of the 50-year-old and the 25-year-old cases.
Ranjan also said out of about 90 lakh pending civil cases, more than 20 lakh are at a stage where summons have not been served yet.?
"This is about 23 per cent of the civil cases in the country. In criminal cases, the figure is worse. Out of 2.10 crore (pending) criminal cases, the total pendency at the summoning stage is over a crore.
"If summons have not been served, how do my judges start the trial? This is my question to the executive. The responsibility of summoning solely lies with the executive arm of the government," a PTI report quoted Justice Gogoi as saying.
He said that of all the pending criminal cases, 45 lakh are petty offences.
Gogoi mentioned that he is hopeful of Centre raising the retirement age of high court judges to 65 years from the current 62.
"The immediate result - there will be a freeze of retirement for three years. In these three years, we can try and fill up the 403 vacancies by good judges. This is my dream. It should be carried out by my successor Chief Justice (of India) and I don''t see why he cannot change the face of Indian judiciary," Justice Gogoi said.