Bilaspur: Pendency of cases in Chhattisgarh high court has crossed 50,000 mark by the end of March this year. The same was a little over 40,000 last year. One of the main reasons behind this escalation is being attributed to paucity of number of sitting judges.
Data released by the office of additional registrar of Chhattisgarh high court show as many as 44,764 cases were pending in high court as on March 31, 2015. These included 48 PILs, 8,362 cases pertaining to service matter, eight habeas corpus and 15,808 writ petitions. The number of pending cases as on March 31, 2016 had gone up to 51,000. These include 83 PILs, 8,752 service matter cases, seven habeas corpus, 298 cases of contempt of court and the rest writ petitions.
Chhattisgarh high court is at present functioning with less than 50% sanctioned strength of sitting judges.
Against the sanctioned strength of 22 judges, Chhattisgarh high court presently has only nine sitting judges.
Speaking to TOI, high court registrar general Arvind Singh Chandel informed that some names have been recommended for elevation to the post of high court judge for Chhattisgarh high court. "These recommendations were made late year and we are still awaiting posting of new judges," added Chandel. As on January 2015, Chhattisgarh high court disposed on an average about 2,500 cases per month. These included a little over 1,100 criminal and appellate cases. In March 2016, 2,260 cases were decided upon by high court, which included more than 1,200 criminal cases, informed high court sources.
A number of election petitions were also filed before Chhattisgarh high court following 2013 assembly elections and 2014 parliamentary elections. Up to January 2015, 17 election petitions were pending before high court.
By March this year, half a dozen of those petitions were decided upon by high court, while 11 are still pending. Up to July 2014, Chhattisgarh high court had 13 judges. Then a transfer, two retirements in 2014 and one retirement this year has reduced the number of judges in high court to less than half its sanctioned strength. In July 2014, Justice Sunil Kumar Sinha was transferred to Sikkim high court. The same month, Justice Nawal Kishore Agrawal retired on July 22, 2014. A month later, on August 4, 2014 Justice RN Chandrakar retired and this year on June 18, Justice TP Sharma also retired.
Now the nine judges, including Chief Justice, in Chhattisgarh high court are Justice Navin Sinha, Justice Pritinker Diwaker, Justice Prashant Mishra, Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava, Justice Goutam Bhaduri, Justice Sanjay K Agrawal, Justice P Sam Koshy, Justice Inder Singh Uboweja and Justice Chandra Bhushan Bajpai. There are two cases, a civil and a criminal appeal, that are pending in high court since 1989. A substantial number of cases pending in high court are the ones that were transferred to Chhattisgarh high court on Novermber 1, 2000, when it came into being as high court of the new state of Chhattisgarh. These cases were transferred from Jabalpur bench of MP high court. Paucity of judges has further escalated the problem of pendency, feel both- judicial officers and lawyers.
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