India Inc Unveils Five-Point Plan to Tackle Backlog of Court Cases

CII noted that more than 50 million cases are pending nationwide and that disposal rates trail new filings in many jurisdictions. It urged the NJDG — launched in 2015 under the e-Courts project —t o publish automated, real-time state rankings based on case-clearance rates, with separate metrics for commercial and non-commercial suits. Rankings could be back-calculated for the past five to 10 years to benchmark progress.

Enhanced categorisation of disputes and full reporting by all courts are also needed, CII said, citing Tamil Nadu, which lists just 15 pending district-level commercial cases on the grid against an estimated 5,000. The industry body warned that incomplete data masks true pendency and hampers reform.

India placed 163rd of 190 economies for contract enforcement in the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business report. CII believes robust NJDG analytics can accelerate dispute resolution, improve judicial efficiency and strengthen the country’s investment climate.

The five point plan

· Real-time state rankings: Use NJDG data to publish automated, continuously updated rankings of every state based on their case-clearance rate, driving healthy competition.
· Granular breakdowns: Issue separate rankings for commercial vs. non-commercial suits (and other categories) so problem areas are visible.
· Retrospective benchmarking: Provide the same clearance-rate metrics for the past 5–10 years to let states measure progress over time.
· Finer case tagging: Link each dispute on NJDG to its exact statute or legal provision, creating a more detailed, searchable database.
· Mandatory full reporting: Require every court to upload complete, timely statistics so pendency figures are accurate and no cases are missed.