Pending court cases: the High Courts' table counts 16,17,569 cases pending more than 10 years and 13,53,359 pending more than 5 years; the answer does not say what the second column counts

What was asked

In March the Lok Sabha asked the Ministry of Law and Justice for the number of cases pending in the Supreme Court, the High Courts and the subordinate courts, and for “the average duration of cases pending beyond standard timelines”, state by state. The ministry answered on 27 March 2026 (Unstarred Question 5553) with the number of cases pending as on 23 March 2026, from the National Judicial Data Grid: 92,782 in the Supreme Court, 63,95,572 in the 25 High Courts and 4,86,33,521 in the District and Subordinate Courts. On the second part it said that “the information regarding average duration of cases pending is not centrally maintained”.

In August another question asked whether the government keeps data on long-pending cases and, if so, for the number pending more than five years and more than ten years, court by court. The answer of 7 August 2026 (Unstarred Question 3371) gives it, from the same grid, as on 30 July 2026: for the Supreme Court, each High Court and 36 rows of States and Union Territories, the cases pending, those “pending for more than 10 years” and those “pending for more than 5 years”.

Two columns that cannot both be right

A case pending for more than ten years has also been pending for more than five. Read as labelled, the second column can never be smaller than the first. In the High Courts’ table it is: the printed total for more than 10 years is 16,17,569, and for more than 5 years 13,53,359, which is 2,64,210 fewer.

The same holds in eight of the 25 High Courts, Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, Madras and Orissa. Allahabad High Court has 4,89,981 cases pending more than 10 years and 2,41,591 more than 5. In the table of District and Subordinate Courts it holds in one row, West Bengal: 8,05,149 cases more than 10 years old against 7,19,828 more than 5. In the other rows, and in the Supreme Court’s (9,425 and 14,352), the second figure is the larger.

The answer does not say what the “more than 5 years” column counts. If it counts only cases between 5 and 10 years old, every row is possible, but the heading is wrong, and the cases more than five years old are the two columns added together. If it counts what its heading says, the nine rows above cannot be right.

What the two readings give

In the District and Subordinate Courts, 4,99,11,920 cases were pending as on 30 July 2026, 54,51,914 of them for more than 10 years (10.9%). Read as labelled, 93,97,617 cases, 18.8%, are more than five years old. Read as 5 to 10 years, the figure is 1,48,49,531, 29.8%. The two readings are 54,51,914 cases apart.

In the High Courts, the 16,17,569 cases pending more than 10 years are 25.0% of the 64,66,970 pending. Read as 5 to 10 years, the cases more than five years old are 29,70,928, 45.9%. Read as labelled, the answer gives 20.9%, less than its own share for ten years.

“Not centrally maintained”

The March answer gave no figure on the age of pending cases. A week earlier, on 20 March 2026, the ministry’s answer to Unstarred Question 4816 had given one from the same grid: of 44,75,765 civil cases pending in the High Courts as on 16 March 2026, 10,48,393 had been pending for over ten years. The August answer gives counts by age for every court. Neither gives an average duration, which is what the March question asked for.

Where the oldest cases are

Uttar Pradesh has 24.0% of the cases pending in District and Subordinate Courts and 42.5% of those pending more than 10 years: 23,19,114. With Bihar (8,76,810) and West Bengal (8,05,149), the three states with the most such cases have 73.4% of them. Among the High Courts, Allahabad has the highest share of its cases pending more than 10 years, 39.9%, followed by Calcutta (37.7%). The answer does not say why.

What the answer does not give

Neither answer gives the average duration of pending cases, or the number of cases pending beyond any standard timeline, which is what the March question asked for. The August answer does not define its age columns.

Adds up

Every column of all four annexures adds up exactly to its printed total: the High Courts and the 36 rows of States and UTs in both answers. Between 23 March 2026 and 30 July 2026, cases pending in the District and Subordinate Courts rose by 12,78,399, or 2.6%; in the High Courts by 71,398; and in the Supreme Court by 3,172.

Got it right

The August answer gives what was asked for, court by court and state by state, from one named source, in tables that add up, and it is the first answer we read that gives the number of cases pending more than 10 years for every court. Between March and July, pending cases fell in five High Courts, most in Bombay (17,732 fewer), and in the District and Subordinate Courts of Jharkhand, Kerala and Sikkim. Among the States and UTs with at least 1,00,000 cases pending, Chhattisgarh has the smallest share pending more than 10 years: 1,303 of 4,77,267, 0.27%.

Every court and every State and UT

How we did this

• Sources: the Ministry of Law and Justice’s answers to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 3371 (7 August 2026), Unstarred Question 5553 (27 March 2026) and Unstarred Question 4816 (20 March 2026).
• The rows of all four annexures were read from the answers’ Word files by a script, and every number was checked against their PDFs. Every column was summed against its printed total, and in every row the two age columns were compared.
• The two answers list the courts and the States and UTs in the same order, so rows are paired by position and their names checked. The names used here are those of the August answer.
• We searched the Lok Sabha’s index of answers of the Ministry of Law and Justice for others on pending cases and read those with figures; none after 7 August 2026 gives cases by age. The ministry’s answers on judges’ posts are audited in Lower court judge posts.
• Download the data: pending-cases-by-court-and-state-2026.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.

Questions

Corrections

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