Patna HC examines 7.8 lakh pending criminal cases in Bihar

The Patna High Court on Friday issued a series of directions to district magistrates who head legal services offices as well as secretaries of the Bihar Legal Services Authority (BALSA) to examine and dispose of 7.8 million criminal cases pending in lower courts of the state more than two decades.

Hearing a PIL filed by Kaushik Ranjan, a bench of Chief Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh and Justice Partha Sarthy directed the district magistrates to examine and prepare a district list of about 7,20,621 criminal cases pending due to "non-appearance of counsels".

The High Court directed the authorities to immediately provide lawyers to the needy in such pending cases. The two judges further directed them to look into the 67,811 pending criminal cases across Bihar which have allegedly become infertile (in which the parties are not interested) and do the needful for their speedy reduction. The High Court asked them to complete the exercise within three weeks and report it by March 3, when the matter will be heard again.

The data was provided by the petitioner's counsel Shama Sinha and was collected from the National Court Network last month. The court termed the statistics as "alarming" and said that after ascertaining the actual data of pending cases from all the lower courts, they will issue directions to reduce the backlog of criminal cases in the state.

On the motion of Advocate General P K Shahi, the bench also directed the District Magistrates to examine all criminal cases pending since 2005 and earlier and also state the reasons for their pendency. The High Court also directed them to report cases where proceedings have been stayed due to interim orders passed by superior courts. BALSA Member Secretary Rajesh Narayan Sevak Pandey and Joint Secretary Jasleen Dhriti Sharma were present in the courtroom during the hearing.