For the first time in many years, the number of cases disposed of by the Madras High Court was more than the number of cases filed in a year: 1,62,081 cases disposed of against 1,52,609 instituted in 2018. The achievement, although small, appears to have been the result of the substantial increase in the strength of judges over the years.
A look at the statistics of the court since 2005 shows that the number of cases filed in a year was around 1.5 lakh cases every year. The court could never match its disposal figures with that of new cases, which led to fresh cases getting added to the kitty of pending cases.
The principal seat of the High Court in Chennai and its Madurai Bench began the year 2005 with a pendency of 1,32,260 and 26,730 cases respectively. During the course of the year, 1,01,733 cases were filed in Chennai and 30,733 cases in Madurai, but the court was able to dispose of only 77,641 and 20,728 cases respectively by the end of the year.
The accumulation continued year after year and the High Court ended up with a pendency of around 2.9 lakh cases in the beginning of 2017.
In that year, as many as 1.44 lakh cases were filed in Chennai and Madurai put together and the court disposed of 1.42 lakh cases, thereby carrying forward a small number of cases to the next year.