Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), Uttar Pradesh’s most affluent and urbanised district, has the highest number of legal disputes pending in its courts (918,575) and Lucknow is a distant second (482,288), according to National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) figures.
In mid-June, nearly 1.19 crore (11.9 million) cases were pending in Uttar Pradesh subordinate courts, including around less than 19 lakh (1.9 million) civil and more than 1 crore (10 million) criminal matters. The case load in the state was the highest in the country.
Noida’s tally, which accounts for around 8% of the total case pendency in the district and lower courts in Uttar Pradesh, has since risen further as fresh cases continue to be instituted.
Noida’s case pendency is overwhelmingly driven by criminal cases. Civil cases account for less than 30,000 of the pending total disputes while criminal cases stood at a whopping around 8.89 lakh (889,000).
In terms of caseload, Noida and Lucknow are followed by Agra (479,421), Kanpur Nagar (424,638), Prayagraj (350,055), Ghaziabad (341,001) and Gorakhpur ( 315,656)
The highest number of cases under the Negotiable Instruments Act are filed in Noida district because of it being a hub of commercial activities, according to Uday Pratap Singh, legal remembrancer and principal secretary (Law).
{{/usCountry}}The highest number of cases under the Negotiable Instruments Act are filed in Noida district because of it being a hub of commercial activities, according to Uday Pratap Singh, legal remembrancer and principal secretary (Law).
{{/usCountry}}“Cases related to business rivalries, bouncing of cheques could be one of the reasons for the high number of cases in Noida,” he said.
The contrast
The pendency data shows that while western Uttar Pradesh districts appear to be carrying a heavier burden of criminal cases, eastern UP has a relatively higher concentration of civil disputes.
“Historically, eastern Uttar Pradesh has been high on civil disputes and western region on criminal disputes,” Singh said.
Prayagraj, in fact, leads the state in pendency of civil cases with 79,355 cases, followed by Sultanpur (73,634), and Lucknow (69,949).
Other districts with a high number of pendency of civil cases include Azamgarh, Varanasi, Pratapgarh, Gorakhpur and Jaunpur.
With nearly 8.89 lakh (889,000) pending criminal cases, Gautam Buddha Nagar is also among the districts with the highest criminal backlog.
The high pendency in Noida is also accompanied by a heavy flow of fresh cases.
In June alone, 7,786 new cases were instituted in the NCR district, making it the district with the second highest rate of new cases after Lucknow.
This constant inflow means that the district’s courts are not merely dealing with an old backlog but they are also facing a substantial daily addition to their workload and this holds true of all other districts too.
Age-profile of cases
In around 30 districts, more than 80% cases are over one year old. In most of the remaining districts, barring a few, around 70% or more cases are also over a year old.
Despite having the highest overall pendency in UP, less than 39% of Gautam Buddha Nagar’s pending cases are more than one year old. This means that over 60% of its pending cases are comparatively new, suggesting a very high rate of fresh cases and a rapidly expanding caseload.
The data thus presents a paradox. Noida has the state’s biggest judicial pendency, but its backlog is also considerably younger than that of most other districts.
In contrast, several districts with a smaller overall pendency are carrying a much older stock of unresolved cases.
Women and senior citizens as litigants
With around 1.19 crore (11.9 million) cases pending in UP’s lower courts, cases filed by women account for only nearly 7.95 lakh (795,000) or about 7% of the total pendency, according to the data.
Of these, 2.43 lakh (243,000) are civil and 5.52 lakh (552,000) criminal.
In contrast, 5.54 lakh (554,000) cases involving senior citizens are pending in the state’s lower courts, accounting for about 5% of the overall backlog.
Senior citizens are predominantly party to civil disputes, with 4.36 lakh (436,000) or nearly 79% of their cases being civil, while only 1.18 lakh (118,000) are criminal matters.