The distinction matters because India’s district and subordinate courts currently carry nearly 4.98 crore pending cases. Almost 1.35 crore of these cases are more than five years old. At the same time, the Department of Justice reported 4,848 vacancies against a sanctioned strength of 25,894 district and subordinate court judges as of 5 February 2026. These vacancies must be filled. Yet filling them without changing court work practices will add capacity to the same operating system that produced the backlog.

 

Governance Now has already argued [https://www.governancenow.com/views/columns/why-the-judiciary-needs-much-more-than-four-more-judges] that increasing the strength of the Supreme Court cannot substitute for structural reform across the judicial system. That argument should now be carried into the daily management of district courts, where most citizens first encounter justice. Pendency is a capacity problem, but it is also a problem of scheduling, coordination, information and accountability.

 

Court statistics usually identify how many cases are pending and how old they are. They do not always identify who is responsible for moving an ageing case to its next meaningful stage. A case may remain inactive because summonses have not been served, a report has not arrived, evidence is repeatedly deferred or the same procedural defect returns at successive hearings.

 

Every court should conduct a monthly age-wise review in which cases older than defined thresholds are assigned a recorded next action, a responsible court function and a review date. This is not a demand that judges guarantee outcomes or compromise judicial discretion. It is an administrative requirement that no case should remain old without an identifiable reason and a planned procedural response.

 

The National Judicial Data Grid already provides age bands, institution and disposal data, undated cases and excessive-dated cases. The next step is to use these data inside each court as a management tool, not merely as a national dashboard.

 

A hearing date has little value when it produces no procedural movement. Courts should therefore measure meaningful hearings, not only listings. A meaningful hearing may frame issues, record evidence, decide an application, complete arguments or issue a reasoned direction that advances the case.

 

Adjournments require the same discipline. Some are unavoidable because a party is ill, evidence is unavailable or procedural fairness requires more time. Repeated adjournments for the same controllable reason are different. Courts should record standardised reasons, identify recurrence and review whether delay is being caused by parties, lawyers, agencies, court administration or missing infrastructure.

 

This would make delay diagnosable. A court cannot correct service failures through more hearing dates, or address absent witnesses through faster judgment writing. Different causes require different administrative responses.

 

Judicial performance depends on more than judges. Readers, clerks, stenographers, process servers, prosecutors, police officials, legal-aid lawyers and record-room staff shape the speed and reliability of a case. A judge may be ready to proceed, but the hearing still fails when the file is incomplete, the order has not been uploaded, the witness has not been informed or the process report cannot be traced.

 

Court staffing should therefore be assessed by function, workload and workflow rather than by aggregate vacancy alone. Each court needs clear responsibility for file scrutiny, process service, record digitisation, order preparation and communication with litigants. Cross-functional bottlenecks should appear in the same performance review as case disposal.

 

My doctoral research in subordinate courts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand found that court resources strengthened the relationship between court culture and performance. Resources mattered, but their effect depended on the practices through which judges, lawyers and staff used them. The court-culture study identified professionalism, work orientation, discipline and manipulation among the dimensions shaping how work is conducted.

 

Technology can reduce procedural friction, but only when the process changes with the tool. Scanning an old file does not resolve an unclear filing process. An online cause list does not prevent an unproductive listing. E-filing does not save time when the same information is checked repeatedly by different offices.

 

The eCourts Project Phase III seeks to create digital and paperless courts, digitise legacy and current records, expand video conferencing and strengthen online services. Its value should be judged through reduced filing defects, faster process service, fewer physical visits, reliable access to records and shorter time between one procedural stage and the next.

 

The Supreme Court’s 2024 National Court Management Systems framework recognises case management, human-resource development and court-development planning as connected institutional functions. Implementation should now reach the level at which court staff and judges can see which practice is delaying which category of case.

 

A court can increase disposal by concentrating on simpler matters while difficult old cases remain. It can dispose of cases quickly while litigants face repeated visits, inaccessible records or unclear orders. Disposal must therefore remain a central measure, but not the only one.

 

Court performance should include access to justice, timeliness, quality of judicial activity and public trust. In a study based on interviews with legal professionals and court clients, followed by scale development, my co-author and I found that these dimensions captured performance more fully than a disposal count alone. The peer-reviewed court-performance study [https://iacajournal.org/articles/10.36745/ijca.399] provides a basis for court-level measurement without converting justice into a crude ranking exercise.

 

A practical dashboard can combine case age, clearance rate, meaningful hearing rate, repeated adjournment reasons, process-service time, order-upload time, litigant access and complaints resolved. Courts should compare their own progress over time and against courts with similar caseloads, jurisdictions and resources.

 

India needs more judges, better courtrooms, trained staff and reliable digital systems. Rejecting additional resources would be as mistaken as assuming that resources alone will solve delay. The reform unit must be the working court, not only the sanctioned post.

 

Each district judiciary should adopt a court work-practices review with five responsibilities: ownership of old cases, hearing discipline, coordination across court functions, use of digital tools and multidimensional performance measurement. High Courts can set standards and review patterns while allowing local courts to respond to their case mix and constraints.

 

The number of judges tells us how much formal capacity the system has. Court work practices tell us how much of that capacity reaches the litigant. Judicial reform will begin to reduce delay when India measures and improves both.