more-in Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has written to the States, seeking their cooperation with the High Courts in filling 4,937 vacancies in subordinate and district courts so as to expedite justice delivery. There are 2.7 crore cases pending in the subordinate courts and 38.7 lakh cases in the High Courts. “We are deeply concerned by the huge pendency of cases...,” he said, citing the Supreme Court’s directive in the Imtiyaz Ahmed v. State of U.P. and others. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions, the Law Commission submitted its 245th report, ‘Arrears and Backlog: Creating Additional Judicial (wo) manpower.” The National Court Management System (NCMS) Committee went through the recommendations and proposed, in its interim report, a “weighted” approach: disposal weighted by the nature and complexity of cases in local conditions. On January 2 this year, the Supreme Court in the same case asked the State governments and the High Courts to compute the strength of judges as per the NCMS Committee report and take decisions within three months for increasing the strength. The court directed the NCMS Committee to submit its final report by December 31. It also directed the Central government to forward a copy of the NCMS interim report to the State governments and the HCs for follow-up action. The Department of Justice forwarded the interim report on January 27. “I have learnt that there are about 4,937 vacancies as on January 2016 in subordinate and district courts. I have written to the Chief Justices of the HCs,” Mr. Prasad said.

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