Law Minister Kiren Rijiju: High Courts, and district courts have conducted a total of 1.92 crore virtual hearings.

Last Updated on October 4, 2022 by Administrator

Written By- Pretika Tiwari

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, High Courts and district courts all over the nation have performed a total of 1.92 crore virtual hearings, according to Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, who announced in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. Till June 13 2022, the Supreme Court of India has heard around 2,61,338 cases, while the High Courts have heard 63,76,561, and the district courts have held hearings for 1,28,76,549 cases. The statistics were provided during the questions raised in the parliamentary proceedings of the Rajya Sabha. The questions were raised regarding establishing e-courts and requesting information on video conferencing hearings conducted by the High Courts and district courts. MP from Uttarakhand, Naresh Bansal, submitted the following questions- whether the creation of e-courts has aided in the faster resolution of pending cases; if yes, specific information on each State; and whether the government has a plan to raise the number of judges in the nation’s courts, and if so, what exactly is in the proposal?

Karnataka is in first place among the High Courts with 7,80,305 virtual hearings. With 6,64,649 and 5,81,047 virtual hearings, respectively, the High Courts of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana are not far off. Delhi is in first place at the district court level with 29,96,145 virtual hearings. 28,79,359 and 18,05,852 video hearings were held in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar courts, respectively. Most High Court data have been calculated to April 2022. Furthermore, the data is displayed up to March 2022 for seven High Courts, namely Allahabad, Calcutta, Gauhati (bench in Arunachal Pradesh), Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Manipur. Up till May 2022, data for Himachal Pradesh has been gathered.

The E-Committee of the Supreme Court of India published a newsletter in August of last year claiming that from March 2020 to August 2020, the 25 High Courts handled 48,60,500 cases via video conferencing, while the district courts handled 89,57,395 cases.