The proposal of the Election Commission of India to link the electoral roll with the Aadhaar ecosystem in order to check multiple enrolment of the same person is under consideration of the government, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Responding to a question on electoral reforms, the Law Minister, in a written reply, said the Law Commission in its 244th and 255th reports had extensively dealt with the subject.
“The Election Commission of India has proposed to link the electoral roll with the Aadhaar ecosystem with a view to curbing the menace of multiple enrolment of the same person at difference places. The matter is under consideration of the government,” he said to a specific question.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Minister also answered separate questions on the pendency of cases and the advice given to government departments that are engaged in a number of litigations.
Talking about pendency of cases, the Minister said according to the information available on National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), over 3.93 crore cases were pending in the lower and subordinate courts as of July 30 this year. Of this, 1,05,10,012 were civil cases and 2,88,11,595 criminal cases.
As many as 1,02,001 cases were pending disposal in lower courts for over 30 years, the Minister said. “No time frame has been prescribed for disposal of various kinds of cases by the respective courts,” he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Responding to another question, Mr. Rijiju said Railways and the Department of Revenue were among the government departments that were involved in a large number of litigations, but they were taking steps to bring down the number of cases.
The Minister also answered a question on setting up 12 virtual courts in Delhi, Faridabad (Haryana), Pune and Nagpur (Maharashtra), Kochi (Kerala), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Guwahati (Assam) and Bengaluru (Karnataka) to try traffic offences and said that 75 lakh cases had been handled until July 12 this year.