In court

* Delhi’s five district courts share a burden of over 12 lakh cases. The largest contributors are cases under the Negotiable Instruments Act,mainly cheque bounce cases,with as many as 5.1 lakh pending cases

* The number of cases pending in Delhi courts last year stood at 9.42 lakh,about 32 per cent higher than the 7.13 lakh in 2007

* The court of the metropolitan magistrate has the largest backlog with 9,65,337 cases pending as on February 2 this year

* The sessions courts in the five districts have 22,829 cases pending,of which 1,766 cases pertain to the offence of murder,while 43,024 pending cases in these courts are civil cases

* The imbalance in the ratio of the matters and judges also adds to the problem. Data provided by the Supreme Court shows that out of 591 posts of judges in the lower judiciary,226 were lying vacant till the beginning of 2009

* Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan has been advocating the setting up of an additional 10,000 courts to tackle the backlog of 3.5 crore cases across the country

* There are 15,000 subordinate courts but around 13,800 courts amount to the current working strength,as per the chief justice