The Supreme Court saw the backlog of cases increase by another 80 in a slow holiday-ridden October where almost 3,000 fewer cases were filed than in the previous month. However, in more positive news the apex court has managed to continue its now four-month record of getting cases older than one year off its books.

Since the end of May 2011, when arrears cases older than one year had increased to 36,926 (a grand 1,000+ more than a month earlier at April-end), the court has made steady progress month-by-month. In October almost 300 cases over a year old were cleared continuing the now four-month-long downward trend, although the SC has still not caught up with the figure it had in April 2011.

October also saw the greatest admin clean-up so far: 728 “disposed of matters pertaining to previous months, but updated this month” were taken on record. Last month this figure was a record 586, indicating either previous inefficiencies in records coupled with an administrative streamlining or simply a huge clearance rate in previous months that is only now getting picked up.

October was also the slowest month in the apex court this year since May, no doubt helped by Diwali and other holidays (see graph below).

Any light that can be shed by readers on the progeny of such late updated cases would be welcome.