40 Million Cases Pending in Indian Courts

Author: RC Aggarwal
Publisher: Book Palace, New Delhi
(Pp 248, ISBN 9788171871315, Rs 295)

Justice delayed is justice denied! This is a universal statement—true to a larger extent only in India where 40 million court cases remained pending till date. RC Aggarwal, advocate, Supreme Court and author of this book titled 40 Million Cases Pending in Indian Courts – Causes & Remedies is a fact finder who has brought the reality to the core. He is the man of laws who sees so many citizens, including his friends having been running from pillar to pillar over the last 5 to 35 years for justice that has not yet conclusively come to a shore. In some cases, actual clients have since expired and now their sons and daughters are pursuing the cases.

The notorious December 16 gang rape case (2012) is an infamous instance of pending case in India. Nationwide protests against the rapistsmurders are of no use. Two years have been passed, those culprits who have been sentenced for capital punishment are giggling during court hearings. This is the sign of poor infrastructure in the Indian judiciary system. Even the fast track court in the country is not as fast as it ought to be in real sense when it comes to making a stark comparison to European and American countries. If the count of the pending cases is reckoned, one can say there are no pending court cases in the UK and US.

This book signifies the fact that court cases in India are also considered to be a big killer. The person facing a court case in India is always under pressure. In addition to referring the strains and instances of the million pending court cases in country, the author brings some remedies towards all these maladies. This book suggests the introduction of more Lok Adalats and a good number of arbitrators to be appointed in all trial courts. He picks up the example of a nobleman called Dharamadhikari in Mangalore, who has brought 20,000 court cases to final decisions and he runs a law degree college too.

Of the remedies the author suggests in this book include the introduction of the provision of pre-bargaining and an out-of-court settlement system in India. He urges that it’s time for in-depth study of the judicial systems of the UK and US. Other than the author, there is a host of contributors to this book who are well known Supreme Court and High Court judges, advocates, central information commissioner, CBI director, etc. The common idea of all that contained in this book is to have strong determination to reduce the pending court cases, which cannot be as difficult as it gets when everything puts into right place and practice.
-Jyaneswar Laishram