SC to take up 300 oldest cases from October

Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit on Wednesday released orders to list for hearing 300 oldest matters from October in an impetus to resolve pendency of cases in the Supreme Court

Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit on Wednesday released orders to list for hearing 300 oldest matters from October in an impetus to resolve pendency of cases in the Supreme Court.

As per the statistics available on the Supreme Court website, there are 70,310 pending cases in the top court as on September 1. (HT File)

The oldest such pending case is from 1979 and nearly two dozen cases are from 1990 to 2000.

The notification released by the Registry of the Supreme Court on Wednesday said, “Take notice that 300 oldest after notice matters of which list is appended below are likely to be listed before the courts on non miscellaneous days beginning Tuesday, October 11, 2022.”

The cases to be listed also include a PIL filed by environment activist and lawyer MC Mehta in 1985 kept pending on the files of the Supreme Court for nearly 37 years. Most of the cases have either become redundant due to passage of time or have lost relevance as the immediate concern sought to be addressed in these petitions was achieved long back. However, these petitions continued to remain in the SC docket adding to the pendency statistics of the Supreme Court.

As per the statistics available on the Supreme Court website, there are 70,310 pending cases in the Supreme Court as on September 1.

The latest decision by the CJI is in continuation of his efforts to de-clog the judicial system of old matters and Constitution bench cases. After taking over as CJI on August 27, Justice Lalit has listed regular matters which are old cases pending for over a decade in the morning session on every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday while the second half of the day is devoted to hearing of fresh matters.

After taking over the reins of judiciary, CJI Lalit also constituted five separate Constitution Benches of five judges each to dispose off the bulk of 493 Constitution Bench cases (including connected cases) in the top court of which 343 are five-judge bench matters, 15 seven-judge bench matters and 135 nine-judge bench matters.