'Shortage of judges' not the only reason for pendency, more appointments will not be a solution

Can the huge pendency be just because of lesser number of judges? The then Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court SK Kaul had asked all the district courts to expedite the disposal of long pending cases. The annual report of Punjab and Haryana high court 2014, states, “A special drive was run to reduce the pendency of cases which are more than 20 years old & 15 years old as on 31.12.2013 by 31.3.2014 positively & all the pending cases which are more than 10 years old & 05 years old as on 31.12.2013 by 31.7.2014 positively, vide this Court’s letter No. It states, “There were 212 twenty year old civil and criminal cases pending in various courts in the States of Punjab, Haryana and UT, Chandigarh as on 31.08.2012. The Indian Express reported that according to statistics provided by the Supreme Court’s E-Committee on pending cases in district courts there are more than 2.18 crore cases pending in district courts across the country.