New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS): In a move to reduce pendency, the Supreme Court has junked 13, 147 old unregistered but diarised cases registered prior to 2014.

On Thursday, an order issued by Registrar Judicial-1 Chirag Bhanu Singh said: "These bunch of 13,147 unregistered but diarised cases have been registered prior to the year 2014, to be precise before August 19, 2014. These cases had been filed more than 8 years ago. As per the practice then in vogue, the matters had been returned to the Ld. counsel/petitioner-in-person for rectifying the defects noticed in the matters respectively. They have never been rectified ever. The petitions had added to the pendency at the apex court."

According to data uploaded on the apex court's website, as on September 1, 2022, there were as many as 70,310 pending cases, which included 51,839 miscellaneous matters and 18,471 regular hearing matters.

"The parties have failed to take any effective steps for years at end to rectify and cure the defects so notified. The statutory period for curing the defects is well over. Seemingly the parties do not intend to prosecute any further. Umpteen number of years were allowed to the parties to cure the defects, but to no avail," added the order issued by the Registrar.

"I am constrained but to hold that there is no valid and plausible reason to allow the aforesaid matters to be received for registration. I decline to register the aforesaid diary numbers."