Shimla: Saddled with a pile of cases, some of them more than a decade old, in all there were 265,840 cases pending before the courts in Himachal Pradesh, chief minister Virbhadra Singh, incharge of home portfolio disclosed in the Vidhan Sabha recently.
In response to question by legislator Suresh Bhardwaj, Virbhadra Singh informed the house that there were 296 cases, which included 7 criminal cases that were more than a decade old and were pending before the HP High Court as on 31st December, 2014.
One of these old cases pending before the High Court, is the high profile case between HP Government and the Oberoi company EIH over ownership and control of the prime heritage property Hotel Wildflower Hall. 
Where the courts have been active in trying to reduce the backlog, but several public interest litigations and other cases being filed regularly keep piling up the cases before the courts.
Where there were 296 cases pending for more than a decade before the High Court, the condition in the subordinate courts was not any better as there were 6378 criminal cases before the subordinate courts that were more than 5 years old.
The chief minister disclosed that there were 39,616 cases pending before the High Court and as many as 226,224 cases before the subordinate courts that were awaiting adjudication.
As part of criminal justice delivery system, there were as many as 134,314 criminal cases pending in the courts.
Only over the weekend (14.3.2015) the High Court, subordinate and revenue courts in the state held a National Lok Adalat where a total of 12034 cases related to land acquisition, MNREGA and revenue were listed.
A HP High Court spokesman stated that 6500 cases of the total listed cases at the National Lok Adalat were settled.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
Why is one not surprised? It would be interesting if HILL POST could find out (RTI?) the following:
[1] In how many of the pending cases in the High Court is the govt. itself the petitioner?
[2] How many cases are pending with the State and District Consumer Forums? I am sure the position would be no better here. (Disclaimer- I had filed a case against an educational institution (in my personal capacity) in 2003. Not only has this case not been decided as yet, I have not even heard from the worthy State Forum for the last six years or so!) I am now looking for some unfortunate soul to whom I could bequeath the case in my will; he has to be someone I don’t like, obviously: I wouldn’t do this to a friend!