TL;DR: India’s tribunals have been established with the intention to expedite specialised justice, but the data reflects a mixed picture. ITAT has managed to halve its pendency rate in just over a decade, an impressive feat, but TDSAT has expanded its jurisdiction to multiple sectors without a corresponding increase in sanctioned staff strength, and the NGT witnessed an increase in pendency from 2,001 cases in 2022 to 5,879 in 2026, with hundreds of cases lingering for years in the system. While tribunals have scope and capacity to dispose of cases faster, their sustained performance requires adequate staffing, expertise and administrative capacity.

Context

India’s tribunal system was conceived around a simple promise: specialised justice should be faster, more accessible and better suited to technically complex disputes than the ordinary courts. Over time, that promise has acquired enormous importance. The latest parliamentary Standing Committee Report suggests that the question is no longer simply whether tribunals can dispose of cases quickly but whether institutions created to make justice more efficient are themselves being given the people, infrastructure and administrative capacity needed to keep pace with their workload.

In today’s story, we look at the performance of India’s tribunals, where they have managed to reduce pendency, where backlogs continue to grow, and what their numbers reveal about the capacity of the system to deliver the speedy justice it was designed to provide.

Who compiles this data?

The data is compiled from the 166th Report of the Rajya Sabha Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, on “Review of Functioning of Tribunal System in the Country”, tabled in Parliament.

Where can I download clean & structured data related to this?

Clean, structured, and ready-to-use collection of datasets related to Tribunals is available on Dataful. There are datasets covering case disposal and pendency at the Central Administrative Tribunal, tax dispute cases pending at various judicial forums such as Income Tax tribunals, High Courts and the Supreme Court and so on.

Key Insights

ITAT Pendency fell by more than half over a decade

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), founded in 1941, stands as the most established of the five major tribunals. Initial analysis of ITAT’s performance over the last ten years shows that it has done well. The pendency of cases with the tribunal has dropped from 1,00,567 in 2014 to 44,776 at the end of 2025, even as new appeals come in. ITAT cites improved case management and use of technology as factors contributing to its success.

However, this success was dependent on an institutional setup that is dilapidated. The ITAT had in place just 98 Members as of 01 May 2026, against the sanctioned strength of 126. It had vacancies in almost all administrative positions, with all seven posts of Deputies being vacant and only 10 out of 38 Assistants being regularly filled. The tribunal has fixed certain performance standards. Each Member is expected to dispose of at least 50 appeals every month, with the orders being generally issued within 60 days from hearings. These targets point to an institution that has developed systems to process cases at scale. But the larger lesson from ITAT’s decade-long record is that reducing pendency is not a one-time achievement but requires sustained capacity.

TDSAT’s mandate has grown faster than its institutional capacity

In the year 2000, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) was established to solve disputes arising from the fast-changing telecom industry. But since then, the ambit of TDSAT has undergone a significant change because the Tribunal now deals with disputes pertaining not just to the telecom sector but has also expanded its jurisdiction to cover cases arising in broadcasting and cable services, airport tariffs, cyber matters and matters relating to Aadhaar. In short, a tribunal meant for a specific regulatory issue has transformed into a multi-faceted adjudicatory body handling a broad spectrum of disputes across different sectors.

By 31 October 2025, the Tribunal had registered a total of 18,459 cases and had disposed of 12,460 cases, leaving behind 5,999 cases pending for settlement, which shows that TDSAT has a disposal rate of around 67.5%. However, TDSAT has not commensurately upgraded its institutional capacity. The sanctioned strength of TDSAT stands at the same number of 52 posts as at inception, which means that the Tribunal depends heavily on the use of outsourced officers to perform its day-to-day functioning, apart from looking for more Members and providing the required infrastructure.

Pending cases in National Green Tribunal rose from 2,001 in 2022 to 5,639 in 2025

The NGT (National Green Tribunal) was established to provide specific adjudication in environmental concerns, where delays can translate into difficult-to-reverse outcomes. The tribunal is currently functioning understaffed compared to the minimum number of staff that must be present according to its own laws. The NGT Act states that the members of the tribunal should include at least 10 Judicial Members and 10 Expert Members besides the Chairperson. According to the Committee, the NGT Tribunals are functioning below the above-stated statutory provision, which has necessitated them to call for speedy work on recruitment.

Furthermore, the issue of understaffing is not limited to the benches only. As per the report, only 127 out of the total number of employees are regular, while the rest comprise personnel working on deputation or on a contractual basis. The Standing Committee found that this dependency on a significant part of the contractual workforce accounted for slower disposal and increasing pendency of cases within the tribunal.

By June 2026, the tribunal had registered a total of 55,619 cases and disposed of 49,740 cases since its establishment. While the pendency of cases stood at 2001 by the end of the year 2022, it started rising again, reaching 5879 in 2026. The distribution and age of these cases add another dimension. As of May 2026, the Principal Bench in Delhi had 2,318 pending cases, while the Western Zone Bench in Pune had 1,730. Further, by July 2026, 489 cases had been pending for more than three years. For an environmental tribunal, the age of the backlog matters as much as its size.

Why does it matter?

Tribunals are forums for resolving disputes of relevance to public revenue, businesses, consumers, regulation and the environment. When tribunals are under-resourced, gaps in staffing and technical capacity can divert them from their core objectives, with implications for areas such as environmental protection, taxation and regulation. The tribunal data offer a broader lesson: expediting justice requires more than creating specialised judicial forums. It also requires investment in personnel, technical expertise and infrastructure to enable these institutions to meet the demands of the caseloads they are expected to handle.

Key Numbers

• Pendency of Cases in Income Tax Appellate Tribunal
  2014: 1,00,567 ; 2019: 89,412 ; 2025 (Till Dec 1st): 44776

• Pendency of Cases in the National Green Tribunal
  2021: 2600;  2023: 2882;  2026 (As of June): 5879

• Pendency of Cases in Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (As of Oct, 2025)

  • Total Cases Instituted: 18,459

  • Total Cases Disposed of: 12,460

  • Disposal Rate: 67.5