‘I can’t sleep, get nightmares about files’: Ahlmads at Delhi courts are burned out. A colleague’s suicide brings it home

The burden of cases on India’s courts system – and on ahlmads – is enormous. Harish Singh Mahar, a 43-year-old ahlmad, jumped to his death on January 9 at the courts complex in Saket, leaving behind a note in which he said he was 60% handicapped, and the pressure of work was too much for him.

Mahar was posted at a digital traffic challan court, where about 9,000 cases are pending. Each of the two digital traffic courts in Saket deals with 300 cases daily on average.

The ahlmad’s suicide was followed by protests by court staff. And on Wednesday, the Delhi High Court said it was “conscious” of filling the large number of vacancies for the posts of clerks in district courts, and that it was waiting for an audited report on the number of vacant positions and the strength of the workforce required in the court.

The cadre of ahlmads – keepers of court records – is the nerve centre of the judiciary at the district level. (Express Photo)

The woman ahlmad, who declined to be identified for this report, said she is traumatised by her workload. “I have nightmares about files… I can’t even sleep properly,” she said.

On Mahar’s death by suicide, she said drily: “Pehle log government job ke liye marte the, ab government job ko paane ke baad mar rahe hain (People would die for a government job, but now they’re dying literally.).”

Almost 34,500 cases are pending in her court, the ahlmad said. On the day The Indian Express met her, the causelist – list of cases to be heard by her court on that day – contained 311 entries.

Around 200 new cases are registered daily through the e-filing portal, which allows people to file complaints online, she said. Ahlmads have to go through them, and maybe transfer certain cases to other courts.

A part of the job is public-facing: litigants and lawyers come with questions relating to their cases. “There are a hundred queries every day,” the ahlmad said.

“Each one of us is expected to do the work of dozens of people. It’s insane. If only I had a pension to fall back on, I’d have left long ago, I am so frustrated,” she said.

Harish Singh Mahar, the ahlmad who died by suicide citing work pressure. (Express Photo)

Around 5 pm, as most day workers across the city prepare to head home, the ahlmad embarks on a new set of tasks – preparing for the 300-odd cases that are listed for the next day. “Kal ke 300 file aaj hi nikalenge,” she says.

On some days, there is other work as well – she has to file a monthly report on case pendency for the High Court, or she has to prepare replies to questions asked by the public under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

By the time she is finally done, it is usually 8 pm – an 11-hour day at work.

Earlier this month, the ahlmad submitted a request for a transfer to the Principal District and Sessions Judge. “I had been thinking about it for a long time,” she said. “After seeing what Mahar was driven to, I could delay it no longer.”

Statistical reports from Delhi’s district courts show that the number of pending cases has increased from just 4.7 lakh in January 2005 to almost 16 lakh in January 2026. Over the last seven years specifically, pendency has risen by almost 1.3 lakh cases annually on average. This is despite record numbers of older cases having been disposed of in this period.

But the sanctioned strength of court staff has remained the same. And 733 of the 4,011 sanctioned posts of ahlmads, assistant ahlmads, and readers remain vacant, according to figures compiled by court staff associations using official data.

In May 2025, the leaves of district court staff had to be cancelled in order to keep the courts functioning. In December 2024, Principal District and Sessions Judges issued circulars on the shortage of stenographers in their courts.

The sanctioned strength of stenographers is 1,600; fewer than 1,200 posts are currently occupied. More than 26,000 cases are heard every day by more than 700 trial court judges across Delhi, according to data on the National Judicial Data Grid. Each stenographer types about 40 orders every day on average.