There are 144,900 cases, including violent crimes against women, pending in Manipur courts since 2014, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said while replying to questions in Parliament on December 15-16.
As per the reply, the total cases pending in the Manipur High Court from 2014 to 2022 was 73,565 while in district and subordinate courts, it was 71,335 during the same time period.
The pending cases in the Manipur High Court as per the year are - 2014-4374; 2015-3315; 2016-3286; 2017-3670; 2018-3062; 2019-2468; 2020-2849; 2021-3218; 2022-47323. And, in district and subordinate courts of Manipur, the pending cases each year are - 2014-14249; 2015-14988; 2016-15239; 2017-14775; 2018-13584; 2019-13673; 2020-15830; 2021-16010; 2022-15576.
Meanwhile, a total of 17,628 cases were disposed in the High Court of Manipur between 2014 to 2022. The disposal of cases includes in 2014-1926; 2015-1611; 2016-1726; 2017-1325; 2018-2527; 2019-2265; 2020-717; 2021-1151; 2022-4380.
As many as 45,972 cases were also disposed of in district and subordinate courts of Manipur between 2014 to 2022. The disposal of cases in 2014 was 14257; 2015-7395; 2016-6588; 2017-5256; 2018-4379; 2019-3717; 2020- 1747; 2021-1411; and 2022-1222.
As per the statement of the Union minister, the Supreme Court does not maintain the information in the manner as sought for relating to crime against women. As per Supreme Court Subject Categories, 1,403 deals with “Matters relating to harassment, cruelty to women for dowry, dowry death, eve teasing, domestic violence, etc”.
The total number of pending cases in the above subject category filed since 2014 in the Supreme Court of India stands at 283, as retrieved from the Integrated Case Management Information System (ICMIS) as on December 12.
Further, information of cases relating to crime against women, including violent crimes, in High Court and District and Subordinate Courts is not maintained centrally in the Department of Justice. However, the information relating to the category of “Cases Filed by Women” High Court-wise and State-wise is available as per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), the minister stated.
The union minister stated that myriad factors come into play in deciding the disposal of cases in courts which, inter-alia, include availability of adequate number of judges and judicial officers, supporting court staff and physical infrastructure, complexity of facts involved, nature of evidence, cooperation of stakeholders viz. bar, investigation agencies, witnesses and litigants and proper application of rules and procedures.
There are several factors which may lead to delay in disposal of cases. These, inter-alia, include vacancies of judges, frequent adjournments and lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearing.
As per the statement, in the Fast Track Court of Manipur there are 1023 pending cases while 276 cases have been disposed, and in the Fast Track Special Court of Manipur there are 128 pending cases and 72 have been disposed.
Further, cases filed by women in the High Court of Manipur, as per National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), are civil cases-336, criminal cases-26, totalling to 362 cases. As per NJDG, cases filed by women in district and subordinate courts in civil cases-1624, criminal cases-813 totalling to 2437 cases.
In India’s High Courts, there has been a 0.82% increase in pendency with 53,51,284 pending matters. Finally, in District Courts, the pending matters stand at 42826777, which marks a 4.32% increase in pendency since 2014, as per the statement of the union minister.
It also submitted that the Fourteenth Finance Commission endorsed the proposal of the Government to strengthen the judicial system in states which included, inter-alia, establishing Fast Track Courts for cases of heinous crimes; cases involving senior citizens, women, children etc., and urged the State Governments to use the additional fiscal space provided in the form of enhanced tax devolution from 32% to 42% to meet such requirements. In addition to the above, the central government has also approved a scheme for setting up 1023 Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) across the country for the expeditious disposal of pending cases of Rape under IPC and crimes under POCSO Act.
As on date, 28 states/UTs have joined the scheme. Rs140 crore was released in the financial year 2019-20, Rs 160 crore released during the financial year 2020-21 and Rs 134.557 crore released during the financial year 2021- 22 for the scheme and Rs 53.55 crore released during the current FY up to October, 2022.
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