Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), the wealthiest and most urbanized district in Uttar Pradesh, has the highest number of legal disputes pending in its courts (918,575) with Lucknow coming in second (482,288), according to figures from the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).
As of mid-June, nearly 1.19 crore (11.9 million) cases were pending in subordinate courts in Uttar Pradesh, including less than 19 crore (1.9 million) civil cases and more than 1 crore (10 million) criminal cases. The number of cases in the state was the highest in the country.
Noida’s tally, which represents about 8% of the total cases pending in the district and Uttar Pradesh trial courts, has risen further since then as new cases continue to be filed.
The attachment to the Noida case is largely driven by criminal cases. Civil cases accounted for less than 30,000 of the total pending disputes while criminal cases amounted to about 8.89 lakh (889,000).
In terms of number of cases, Noida and Lucknow are followed by Agra (479,421), Kanpur Nagar (424,638), Prayagraj (350,055), Ghaziabad (341,001) and Gorakhpur (315,656).
The highest number of cases under the Negotiable Instruments Act have been filed in Noida district due to it being a hub of commercial activities, according to Uday Pratap Singh, law clerk and principal secretary (law).
“Issues related to business rivalries and bounced checks could be one of the reasons for the rise in the number of cases in Noida,” he said.
Contrast
The trend data shows that while Western Uttar Pradesh districts appear to have a higher caseload of criminal cases, Eastern Uttar Pradesh has a relatively higher concentration of civil disputes.
“Historically, eastern Uttar Pradesh has been high in civil disputes and the western region in criminal disputes,” Singh said.
In fact, Prayagraj leads the state in pending civil cases with 79,355, followed by Sultanpur (73,634), Lucknow (69,949).
Other districts with a large number of pending civil cases include Azamgarh, Varanasi, Pratapgarh, Gorakhpur and Jaunpur.
With nearly 8.89 lakh (889,000) criminal cases pending, Gautam Buddha Nagar is also among the districts with the highest backlog of criminal cases.
The high rate in Noida is also accompanied by a heavy influx of new cases.
In June alone, 7,786 new cases were recorded in the NCR, making it the district with the second highest rate of new cases after Lucknow.
This constant influx means that district courts are not only dealing with old backlogs of cases but are also facing a significant daily addition to their workload, and this applies to all other districts as well.
Age profile of cases
In about 30 regions, more than 80% of cases are more than one year old. In most of the remaining areas, with the exception of a few, about 70% or more of cases are more than a year old.
Despite having the highest overall wait rate in UP, less than 39% of pending cases in Gautam Buddha Nagar are more than one year old. This means that more than 60% of the pending cases are relatively new, indicating a very high rate of new cases and a rapidly increasing number of cases.
The data therefore represent a paradox. Noida has the largest jurisdiction in the state, but its backlog is also much smaller than most other districts.
In contrast, many smaller public-oriented areas carry a much older stock of unresolved cases.
Women and the elderly as litigants
With about 1.19 lakh (11.9 million) cases pending in trial courts in UP, cases filed by women account for only approximately 7.95 lakh (795,000) or about 7% of the total pending cases, according to the data.
Of these, 2.43 lakh (243,000) are civil and 5.52 lakh (552,000) are criminal.
In contrast, 5.54 lakh (554,000) cases involving senior citizens are still pending in the lower courts of the state, which is about 5% of the total case backlog.
Senior citizens are mostly party to civil disputes, with 4.36 lakh (436,000) or nearly 79% of their cases being civil, while only 1.18 lakh (118,000) are criminal matters.
