2 hours ago
The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday said periodic collection of data from High Courts would not by itself address the problem of more than eight lakh civil execution petitions pending before district courts across the country.
A bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran was examining compliance reports filed by various High Courts pursuant to its earlier directions aimed at ensuring expeditious disposal of execution proceedings.
The proceedings arose from the court’s March 6, 2025 judgment, which dealt with a property dispute which had remained unresolved for nearly four decades.
The court had then directed High Courts to ensure that execution petitions before subordinate courts are disposed of within six months, failing which judicial officers could be held administratively accountable.
Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing as amicus curiae, placed before the court a compilation of responses which cited interim orders, objections raised by parties, absence of lawyers, and repeated adjournments among the reasons contributing to delays.
He also pointed to practical difficulties faced by decree-holders in enforcing court orders, including failure to serve notice on judgment-debtors and difficulties in identifying or locating their properties.
The scale of the backlog prompted Justice Pardiwala to seek assistance on devising a mechanism that would go beyond merely monitoring the number of pending matters.
Justice Pardiwala referred to rule 12 of the Commercial Courts Rules, which provides for the establishment of such a cell, and suggested that a similar mechanism could track execution proceedings across subordinate courts.
The court was informed that only one High Court had so far established such a cell.
“Why are other High Courts not considering it!?” the bench asked.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati told the court that the Centre was considering incorporating relevant provisions directly into the parent legislation, along with consequential amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure, to address concerns relating to delegated legislation.
Justice Pardiwala suggested that the legislation could itself prescribe a schedule for execution proceedings.
“You can say in the Act itself that execution shall be in accordance with a schedule. You can introduce a schedule in the Act itself,” he said.
The Bench said it would seek details of the actual disposal of execution petitions from the High Courts, rather than limiting the exercise to obtaining periodic pendency figures.
“We will call for a progress report from different High Courts as to what is the progress. How many execution petitions have been decided and disposed of. Just calling for these figures every 6 months is not enough. We need to do something more,” the court observed.
The bench directed the amicus and the ASG to submit a note summarising the issues discussed during Thursday’s hearing.
The matter has been posted for further hearing on October 7.
