A court in Mathura recently sentenced 11 policemen to life imprisonment for the murder of 'Raja' Man Singh, ruler of the former princely State of Bharatpur, 35 years after the killing. However, such a delayed judgment is not a rare occurrence. As many as 77 cases filed in the 1950s are still pending across the country with the volume of pending cases increasing with every decade.
The table below shows the number of civil and criminal cases pending disposal by District and Taluka courts across States, and UTs as on July 27, filed in each decade between 1950 and 2019*.
Chart appears incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode.
In Bihar (12), Goa (1), Jharkhand (5), Maharashtra (19), Odisha (2), Uttar Pradesh (24) and West Bengal (14), cases filed in the 1950s are still pending.
The earliest pending case was filed in 1951 in a court in West Bengal.
Out of the nearly 3 crore cases pending a ruling in the country, 2.6 crore were filed after 2010.
Nearly one in every four pending cases across the country are from Uttar Pradesh (73.1 lakh).
Nine States have more than 10 lakh cases pending.
*Note: Cases filed in 2020 have not been considered
