When cases remain pending for decades, justice may eventually arrive, but the citizen may no longer be there to receive it. Justice delayed is justice denied. India has repeated this principle for decades. But perhaps the country has repeated it so often that it has stopped hearing what it actually means.
Today, the real question is much more uncomfortable:
If a citizen has to wait ten, twenty or thirty years for a judgment, can we honestly say that the justice system has delivered justice?The numbers are frightening. More than 92,000 cases are pending before the Supreme Court, while the country’s High Courts together have nearly 64 lakh pending cases. The Punjab and Haryana High Court alone has more than 4.18 lakh pending cases.Behind every number is a human life.A pending case is not merely a file. It may be a farmer waiting for his land, a family waiting for property, an employee waiting for justice in a service matter, a victim waiting for compensation, or an accused person waiting for the final determination of his guilt or innocence. The court file may remain on a shelf.
Life does not.
For Punjab, the situation deserves particular attention. More than four lakh cases remain pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Every year new cases are added, thousands are disposed of, yet the accumulated burden remains enormous.
This raises a simple but uncomfortable question:
What happens to a citizen who cannot afford to wait?
A wealthy litigant may be able to sustain a case for years. An ordinary Punjabi farmer, labourer, employee or small businessman may not have that luxury.
Every hearing can mean another journey to court, another lawyer’s fee, another day away from work and another month of uncertainty.
For some families, litigation becomes an inheritance.
The father begins the case.
The son continues it.
The grandson waits for the result.
Is that justice—or judicial inheritance?
Consider the tragedy of a property dispute. A person may fight for decades to recover his ancestral land and finally win after retirement.
The judgment may be legally correct.
But what about the twenty years that disappeared?
What about the money spent?
What about the family relationships destroyed?
What about the opportunities lost?
And what about the person who initiated the case but died before seeing the judgment?
No court order can bring those years back.
Time is the one compensation no court can award.
This is why judicial pendency cannot be treated merely as an administrative problem.
It is a problem of democracy.
It is a problem of public confidence.
And ultimately, it is a problem of constitutional justice.
The Constitution promises justice to citizens. But justice that arrives after a person’s working life, after retirement, or after death raises a disturbing question about the meaning of that promise.
The judiciary cannot be blamed for every delay. Judges operate within a system involving governments, investigating agencies, prosecutors, lawyers, litigants, court staff and infrastructure.
But precisely because the problem is systemic, the response must also be systemic.
India needs to stop treating a twenty-year-old case as just another case in the queue.
A case pending for twenty years should have a different urgency from a case filed yesterday.
The oldest cases must be placed on a special priority track.
Every High Court should publish the number of cases pending for 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years.
The public should know how many cases have effectively become judicial antiques.
There should be a national Oldest Cases First Mission.
There should be transparent monitoring.
There should be explanations for extraordinary delays.
There should be stronger use of mediation wherever appropriate.
There should be adequate judges, courtrooms, staff and technology.
And there must be serious scrutiny of unnecessary adjournments.
An adjournment may be one line in a court record.
For a poor litigant, it can mean another month’s wages, another journey and another postponement of life.
Procedure is necessary. Endless procedure is not justice.
Punjab, meanwhile, cannot simply wait for Delhi to solve the problem.
The Punjab Government, the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Union Government must develop a focused strategy to reduce the state’s judicial burden.
Punjab needs faster resolution of long-pending civil, criminal, land, property and service matters.
It needs better legal infrastructure.
It needs greater use of technology.
It needs stronger alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms.
And most importantly, it needs a serious conversation about the human cost of delay.
Because the citizen appearing before the court is not appearing merely as a “litigant.”
He is a father.
She is a mother.
They are farmers.
They are workers.
They are employees.
They are businessmen.
They are victims.
They are accused persons.
They are ordinary citizens who have come to the judiciary because they believe the law will listen to them.
The citizen does not demand a favourable judgment. He demands a timely judgment.
That is the difference.
Justice does not mean that every litigant wins.
Justice means that every litigant gets a fair opportunity to be heard and a decision within a meaningful period.
If the system takes decades to decide, the delay itself begins to change the outcome.
A person who cannot afford the wait may withdraw.
A poor family may surrender.
An elderly litigant may die.
A witness may disappear.
Evidence may deteriorate.
Property may change hands.
And memories may fade.
At that point, even a perfect judgment may be unable to repair the damage.
The delay has already delivered its own verdict.
India cannot become comfortable with this.
The country is building highways, airports, digital infrastructure and smart cities.
But what is the value of physical infrastructure if citizens cannot obtain timely justice?
A modern democracy needs modern courts—not merely technologically modern courts, but courts capable of delivering justice within a period in which that justice remains meaningful.
The Supreme Court and High Courts must remain independent.
Judges must never be pressured to sacrifice fairness for speed.
But judicial independence and judicial accountability are not enemies.
The public has the right to ask:
Why is this case still pending after ten years?
That is not an attack on the judiciary.
It is a cry from the citizen.
And Punjab has millions of reasons to ask that question.
More than four lakh pending cases before the Punjab and Haryana High Court should not become a permanent feature of the state’s legal landscape.
They should become a national emergency demanding action.
Because behind every pending case is a person.
Behind every person is a family.
And behind every family is a life that cannot be put on hold forever.
The Indian justice system cannot promise eternity to its citizens.
Human beings do not live for eternity.
They have one childhood.
One working life.
One old age.
One lifetime in which justice must matter.
So the question before India is no longer simply:
How many cases are pending?
The real question is:
HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE WAITING?
And for Punjab, there is an even harder question:
HOW MANY WILL HAVE TO DIE WAITING BEFORE THE SYSTEM DECIDES THAT THEIR WAIT HAS BEEN LONG ENOUGH?
Justice must not merely be available.
Justice must arrive in time to be justice.