ISLAMABAD   -   There is visible decline in pendency of cases in the Supreme Court of Pakistan as pendency/ backlog of cases in the apex court got reduced by 1,182 cases during the last four months.

According to the press release of the PRO SC, issued on Friday, the backlog of cases stood at 53,964 on 31st January, 2022 which has been reduced to 52,796 during the last four months. As per statistics, a total of 6509 cases were instituted, in this Court, during the period from 1st February, 2022 to 31st May, 2022 while 7691 cases were disposed of during the same period.

It said that the corresponding numbers for the same period for the year 2021 stood at 7603 and 3730 respectively showing an increase of 3873 cases in pendency. The current strength of judges, in Supreme Court, is 14, against sanctioned strength of 17, compared to 16 during the same period last year. The average disposal of cases per day was 96 against an Average Institution of 67 cases per day while the corresponding numbers for the previous year, during the same period, were 54 and 81 respectively. Despite working at a strength of 14, the average disposal per Judge, during the said period of four months, was 549 compared to 233 for the same period in the previous year.

The statement said that from 31st December, 2013 onwards, the backlog/pending cases in this court have increased from 20,517 to 53,560 on 31st December, 2021.

The Annual increase in pendency ranged between 1087 in the year 2014 to 7,203 in the year 2021. The last four months have seen a decline in pending cases for the first time since 31st December, 2013.