Aanchal Agarwal –
Published on: September 1, 2021, at 20:45 IST
The Patna High Court experienced an alarming increase in pendency rate during 2019 out of which a large portion of the cases was related to excise matters.
The High Court asked the State Government to devise a plan to dispose of the excise related cases.
Between 2019 and May 2021 about 57159 cases were registered related to excise matters such as the recovery of banned liquor, arrests of liquor smugglers and hooch tragedies etc.
Since 2018 before the pandemic the percentage of pendency of excise related cases was 19% but this rose to 21.75% during the pandemic when the Courts were hearing limited cases.
The Subordinate Courts also experienced an increase in the number of cases being piled up. In 2020 25.42% of excise cases were pending.
The border district of Kishanganj experienced the least number of cases relating to excise matters while the other districts such as Saran, Muzaffarpur etc had the highest number of such cases.
A senior official of the Government stated that “The government requested the HC for appointing judges. However, the HC authorised courts of additional district judges (ADJ) in each district to also hear excise cases in addition to other cases”.
With the cases increasing the number of Judges should also be increasing but it’s not the case. The vacancy in High Courts has reached 35 against the sanctioned strength of 53.
The Patna High Court directed to the Subordinate Courts that all the cases relating to the confiscation of property under the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act 2016 must be finished within 90 days. This was directed by the Court last month.
Also Read: Grounds for Appeal in High Court
