Observing that litigants may become disillusioned if the legal process moves at a snail's pace, the Supreme Court on Friday issued directions, including a few to the high courts, for ensuring speedy trial and disposal of old cases.

A bench comprising justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar referred to the country-wide data of the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) on pendency of cases and said joint efforts by the bar and bench were needed to tackle the issue.

“Litigants may become disillusioned when the legal process moves at a snail's pace. We have expressed our anguish where some litigations are pending for 50 years as per NJDG," the bench said and referred to some old cases which have not been decided for over 65 years in states like West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

“Litigants will lose confidence in the judicial system when the delay continues,” Justice Kumar said.

The bench said litigants should be circumspect about seeking frequent adjournments.

"....they should not take goodness of the presiding officers as their weakness," the judges said as they issued as many as 11 directions to deal with pendency of cases.

The bench said cases pending for over five years needed to be monitored by the respective high courts.

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