Lower courts settled nearly 21,000 cases last month pending for a decade

But even as the judiciary went about clearing the backlog 5,77,834 fresh cases were filed across subordinate courts in April.The latest figures collated by the National Judicial Data Grid said out of the 20,835 cases settled by the lower judiciary in April, 13645 were criminal in nature and 

7190 civil.

A civil case is a lawsuit that usually deals with contracts and torts. Torts are acts of negligence that result in damage or injury. Criminal cases involve an action that is considered to be harmful to society as a whole.

As per data available with the Grid, as on December 31, 2015, there were a total of 2,00,60,998 cases pending across the district courts in the different states.Out of these, 83,00,462 or 41.38 per cent cases are pending for less than two years, while 21,72,411 or 10.83 per cent are pending for over 10 years.

As on May 3, courts in Uttar Pradesh disposed of 5556 cases in April which were pending for a decade. Out of these 1804 were civil while 3752 were criminal cases.