Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said in a written reply that the subordinate courts settled 1,9019,658 cases in 2014, but their backlog still consists of 2.64 crore cases.
Similarly, the 24 High Courts disposed 17,34,542 cases in 2014. The pendency in the High Courts was estimated at 41.53 lakh at the end of December, 2014.
The Supreme Court disposed of 44,090 cases this year till December one, while the pendency there has been estimated at 58,906 till the beginning of this month.
He said some of the main factors responsible for pendency of cases in courts are increasing number of state and central legislations, accumulation of first appeals and continuation of ordinary civil jurisdiction in some of the High Courts.
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The other factors include vacancies of judges, appeals against orders of quasi-judicial forums going to High Courts, frequent adjournments and lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearing.
"As a result of concerted efforts, the trend of increasing pendency of cases in the subordinate courts has been checked," he said.