Government seeks details on pending cases in high courts

SHIMLA - To know the backlog of central government litigations in various high courts of the country, New Delhi has shot off communications to its counsel to furnish details.

A letter in this regard has also been received by the Himachal Pradesh High Court.

In his letter to central government counsel here Sandeep Sharma, a copy of which is with IANS, Additional Solicitor-General of India Mohan Jain has sought details about the number of central government’s cases in the high court, the year of filing and the present status — admitted or pending.

The letter says the exercise is part of the National Litigation Policy - 2010, which aims at “transforming the government into an efficient and responsible litigant”.

The aim is to save valuable court time and help in reducing the average pendency time from 15 years to three years, says the letter.

Jain, who is overseeing the central government litigations in the northern states, has also written similar communications to the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

To overall reduce the pendency of court cases in Himachal Pradesh, the high court has already initiated various steps.

Last month, it launched a project to create a litigation-free village in each district within one year by adopting alternative methods of dispute redressal like mediation, ‘lok adalats’ (people’s court) and settlement by conciliation and arbitration.

The project will be implemented by involving nine law colleges — both private and government — in the state.

Chief Justice Kurian Joseph said the number of pending cases in the high court has come down from 54,000 in February 2010 to 45,000 in August. He said some of the pending cases pertained to 1987.

“The aim is to clear the pending cases up to 2001 by the end of this year. This would bring down the number of pending cases to around 20,000,” he said.