The Madras High Court has created a record in disposal of cases by registering its highest ever Case Clearance Rate (CCR) of 114% in 2022 as against 109% registered in 2021.
A CCR beyond 100% signifies the court had not just matched the number of cases instituted in a particular year with the number that were disposed of in the same year but had also gone a step ahead by clearing considerable number of backlog cases accumulated over the years.
According to official data, 1,61,810 cases were instituted in the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai and its Madurai Bench between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. However, the High Court disposed of 1,85,203 cases during the same period thereby exceeding the disposal compared to institution. High Court officials say the existing backlog of 2.34 lakh cases would get wiped out if the trend of CCR beyond 110% continues for a few more years.
The High Court had registered a CCR of 106.21% in 2018, 112.77% in 2019 and 103.23% in 2020 too despite the COVID-19 outbreak when court hearings were held through virtual mode. The rate increased to 109% in 2021 and reached the all-time high of 114% in 2022. However, the CCR of the district courts in Tamil Nadu continued to remain much below 100% due to multiple factors, including large number of vacancies in the positions of judicial officers.
District courts add to backlog
A total of 8,63,518 cases were instituted in the district courts in the State between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 but they were able to dispose of only 8,06,905 cases during the period thereby registering a CCR of 93.44% and increasing the backlog to 13,87,919 cases at the end of the year. The district courts had been struggling to reach a CRR beyond 100% since the last five years and had been consequently adding up more cases to the backlog.
The district courts in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry had registered their best combined CCR of 97.90% in 2018. Since then, the figure had been dwindling to 93.73% in 2019, 76.91% in 2020 (due to COVID-19) and 91% in 2021.
Vacancies
As per statistics, out of the sanctioned strength of 1,340 judicial officers in Tamil Nadu, the working strength was only 1,069. The remaining 271 posts of district judges (67), senior civil judges (52) and civil judges (152) were lying vacant as on December 31, 2022.
While 20% of the judicial officer vacancies remained vacant in Tamil Nadu during the end of 2022, the situation was no different in Puducherry where the working strength was only 11 as against the sanctioned strength of 28 judicial officers, including eight district judges, eight senior civil judges and 12 civil judges. As many as 17 posts, including two district judges, eight senior civil judges and seven civil judges remained vacant in the Union Territory as on December 31, 2022.
Despite the vacancies, Puducherry had succeeded in disposing 14,985 cases as against the institution of 13,855 cases in 2022. Its CRR exceeding 100% (108.15% to be precise) had resulted in reducing the backlog in the Union Territory from 32,998 cases as on January 1, 2022 to 31,868 cases on December 31, 2022. Court officials also point out that the backlog of cases in the district courts in Tamil Nadu had risen to a whopping 14,49,295 cases as on November 15, 2023.
