When Courts Wait: What Calcutta HC’s 50‑Year Backlog Says About Systems, Technology and Will

I read the report about the Calcutta High Court having the highest backlog of cases pending for 50+ years with that sinking, familiar feeling — this is not just a local headline, it is a national mirror. The story in the Times of India (archived PDF) makes the arithmetic stark: generations of litigants whose disputes remain unresolved, lives and livelihoods on hold, and a legal system that accumulates delay like rust on hinges Times of India PDF.

This is not an abstract administrative problem. It’s a social and moral problem. I want to share a few personal reflections — what the backlog reveals, why we should have seen it coming, and what practical steps we must take now. I’ll be frank: years ago I wrote publicly about preparing institutions and people for technological change (mainly in the education-exam context). The core idea I’ve been insisting on is the same one that applies here: prepare early, digitize thoughtfully, and measure relentlessly. That earlier argument — about readiness and systems thinking — feels painfully validated today NEET reform thoughts, How to Beat NEET‑UG 2025.

The anatomy of a 50‑year backlog

A backlog this old is never the result of a single cause. It’s the intersection of many failures:

• Chronic under‑resourcing — too few judges, court staff, and support systems.
• Procedural friction — adjournments, repeated filings, paper‑bound evidence handling that multiplies delay.
• Infrastructure gaps — limited courtrooms, insufficient digitization, patchy case‑management systems.
• Cultural norms — a tolerance for delay; incentives that reward process over outcome.

Taken together, these create a self‑reinforcing spiral: delay breeds delay. The people who pay the price aren’t statistics — they are elderly plaintiffs, stranded businesses, and families seeking basic relief.

What we should have learned from other sectors

When I advised schools and exam administrators to prepare students for a new computer‑based testing world, I wasn’t just talking about devices and mock tests. I was talking about systemic preparedness: training users, building resilient platforms, designing secure workflows, and monitoring outcomes. The NEET‑CBT conversation I kept returning to was, in essence, a call for systemic modernization before a crisis forces change NEET UG 25 commentary.

Why is that relevant to courts? Because courts are human‑technology systems. You cannot bolt technology onto broken workflows and expect magic. You must redesign processes, retrain people, and measure performance. The backlog demonstrates what happens when reform is delayed until a problem becomes a crisis.

Practical, urgent steps — not platitudes

1. Audit and triage the backlog immediately

• Perform a public, independent audit that classifies cases by age, type (criminal, civil, family), and stage. Prioritize cases older than X years and those affecting fundamental rights.

1. Create rapid‑action fast‑track benches and targets

• Establish time‑bound target courts to dispose of the oldest classes of cases (e.g., 50+ years) within fixed windows. Use visiting retired judges and temporary benches to clear the worst‑aged cases.

1. Digitize end‑to‑end, but redesign first

• Invest in e‑filing and e‑evidence, but redesign processes to minimize back‑and‑forth. Digitization must remove friction (single submission portals, integrated evidence repositories, standard metadata) — not simply replicate paper steps.

1. Use technology to triage and reduce cognitive load

• AI can help categorise incoming filings, detect duplicates, and flag cases suitable for alternative dispute resolution (ADR). But deploy AI as a triage assistant, not as a black‑box decider.

1. Expand remote hearings sensibly

• Make virtual hearings routine for procedural matters, witness availability, and direction hearings. Reserve in‑person time for contested evidence and witnesses who must be physically present.

1. Enforce accountability with dashboards

• Publish public dashboards showing pendency by court, judge, and category. Transparent KPIs drive attention and resourcing.

1. Invest in human capital

• Recruit more judges but also invest in paralegal support, court managers, and digital records staff. The court is more than the bench.

1. Strengthen ADR & mediation

• For civil matters where consent resolves disputes, scale mediation and Lok Adalats, with incentives to settle and transfer cases out of the trial queue.

1. Limit procedural gaming

• Tighten rules on frivolous adjournments, repeated affidavits, and redundant filings. Procedural fairness must not be an invitation to indefinitely delay.

1. Fund and govern reform properly

• This requires budgetary commitment and active administration — not episodic committees. A national/state reform plan with milestones, audits, and public reporting is essential.

Small pilots, large implications

I’m not naïve: wholesale reform is hard. Start with pilots — digital evidence intake in one registry, AI‑assisted triage in another, and a retired‑judge backlog court in a third. Measure, publish the results, iterate fast.

In education, we proved that giving users safe practice (mock CBTs) made the transition tolerable. Courts can mirror that: allow lawyers and parties to submit e‑documents through low‑risk pilot portals so everyone learns the new cycle before it becomes mandatory. This is exactly the pragmatic mindset I’ve urged for exams and schools over the years — small, measurable steps to build system readiness My-Teacher mock test concept.

A personal note — I had flagged this pattern earlier

Years ago I argued that institutions must anticipate change and prepare users, not wait for a crisis to force adoption. In the NEET reform conversations I pointed to the need for digital readiness, testing integrity, and system redesign — long before those debates hit headlines. Seeing a court backlog of this magnitude today is a reminder: the same readiness we urged for exams applies to our justice system. That earlier suggestion now looks prescient, and I feel both validated and urgent — validated because the pattern was visible, urgent because the human cost of inaction is immense NEET reform how about this.

A closing thought: justice delayed can be justice denied

Clearing a 50+ year backlog is not a technical sprint; it is a societal pledge. It requires political will, funds, leadership and — yes — humility to redesign how we do the work. We must stop treating delay as normal and start treating timely resolution as the baseline public service.

The Calcutta HC statistic should be a national alarm bell. Let it be the moment we stop patching and start rebuilding. I do not pretend to have all the answers, but I know enough to insist on urgency: audit, triage, digitize smartly, measure publicly, and invest in people.

If we do that, then perhaps a future generation will no longer read about century‑old cases and feel the shame of wasted justice. If we fail, the backlog will be a monument to our complacency.

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Regards,
Hemen Parekh