Lucknow, July 15 -- The Supreme Court's strong remarks over a criminal appeal remaining pending in the Allahabad high court for nearly four decades have once again drawn national attention to Uttar Pradesh's deep-rooted judicial backlog that runs from the high court to district and trial courts, increasingly raising questions about timely access to justice. Hearing the case of a murder convict whose appeal remained undecided for almost 41 years, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice AS Chaudhary on June 8 described the situation as "disturbing" and sought suggestions on what "innovative measures" could be adopted to address mounting pendency in the Allahabad high court. The case involved Vijay Singh, who was arrested in November 1983 at the age of 28 and later convicted by a sessions court in Kanpur in December 1985 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He challenged the conviction before the Allahabad high court, but his appeal was finally decided only in February 2026. During the hearing, the apex court noted that Singh remained on bail for almost 43 years and spent only a brief period in custody while his appeal remained pending. While the top court's observations arose from one individual case, they have reopened a larger debate as to whether Uttar Pradesh's judicial delivery is facing a structural capacity crisis. The Allahabad high court carries the largest case burden among all the high courts in the country. Official data, presented in the Rajya Sabha by Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on March 19, 2026, shows that pendency in the Allahabad high court crossed 12 lakh (1.2 million) cases and has steadily climbed in recent years. Pendency stood at around 10.24 lakh(1.024 million) in 2021, rose to 10.34 lakh (1.034 million) in 2022, 10.66 lakh (1.066 million) in 2023 and crossed 12.18 lakh (1.218 million) in 2024. As of early 2026, the burden remained above 12 lakh (1.2 million) cases. Nationally, pending cases across all 25 high courts stood at around 63.6 lakh (6.36 million) at the end of 2025, which means Allahabad high court's share in the national pendency is around 19%. The data available for the Allahabad high court indicates that civil matters account for roughly 6.17 lakh (617,000) pending cases while criminal matters constitute about 5.76 lakh (576,000). According to judicial data compiled in the Indian Justice Report, around 40% of pending cases in the Allahabad high court are more than 10 years old, while only about 37% are less than five years old. As of December 2025, the Allahabad high court reportedly had the highest judicial vacancies among all high courts, with around 60 judge positions vacant out of a sanctioned strength of 160 judges. The situation regarding both vacancies and pendency is even worse in the trial courts in Uttar Pradesh. The state recorded the highest number of vacancies in district and trial courts, with 1,055 judicial officer posts vacant, according to 2025 information placed in Parliament by the Union law minister. At the same time, district courts in the state were handling more than 1.19 crore (11.9 million) cases in mid-June, according to the National Judicial Grid pendency dashboard. Uttar Pradesh has the highest pendency burden, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the total case load (4.96 crore or 49.6 million cases) in the lower judiciary in the country. Age-wise pendency data in subordinate courts show that nearly 40% of cases had remained pending for more than five years. More than 15 lakh cases were between 10 and 20 years old and over 3.35 lakh (335,000) cases had been pending for 20-30 years and nearly 17,000 had remained unresolved for more than three decades. Uttar Pradesh has historically remained below the recommended judge-population ratios. The Law Commission of India recommended 50 judges per million population as far back as 1987. Available estimates indicate Uttar Pradesh remains significantly below that benchmark with 11.2 judges per million population and below the national average of 14 judges. The Supreme Court itself has recently attempted to push systemic corrections. In May this year, while dealing with delays in hearing bail applications, a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant suggested a series of institutional measures for all high courts, while specifically flagging concerns relating to pendency in the Allahabad and Patna high courts. The court recommended automatic listing mechanisms, fixed timelines for disposal, weekly for fortnightly listing of bail matters through software systems and discouraging available adjournment by government counsel. It emphasised that delays directly affected personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. Manjeet Sheoran, registrar-general, Allahabad high court, said all possible steps were being taken to deal with the twin challenges of pendency and vacancy. "We are trying our level best to reduce the pendency of cases and fill the vacant posts of judges in the high court," he told HT over phone. Uday Pratap Singh, Uttar Pradesh principal secretary (Law)-cum-legal remembrancer, acknowledged vacancies and pendency in the district and trial courts as a chronic problem."The state government, on its part, is taking a number of measures, including setting up new courts and filling existing vacancies to deal with the problem," he said. He said a collegium to appoint more judges to the Allahabad high court was also expected to convene very soon. For Uttar Pradesh, where court congestion has persisted despite digitisation and periodic reforms and recruitment drives, the Supreme Court's sharp observations, it is believed, may revive pressure for structural reforms before pendency itself becomes a denial of justice....