Underreported backlog? RTI raises questions on armed forces tribunal data

By Venkatesh Nayak* 

Recently, a prominent English-language daily reported statistics relating to the pendency of cases before tribunals established under various central laws. Replying to an Unstarred Question raised by the DMK MP from Perambalur, Tamil Nadu, Thiru Arun Nehru, the Union Minister for Law and Justice tabled data on case disposal and pendency pertaining to 16 major tribunals (click HERE). 

The news report calculated the total pendency at around five lakh cases. Embedded within the data table—covering tribunals such as the NCLT, NCLAT, TDSAT, ITAT, NGT, DRTs, DRAT, CESTAT, and Administrative Tribunals at the Central and State levels—was information relating to the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT). The report stated that pendency before the AFT stood at about 6,900 cases.

In August this year, I filed an information request under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act), seeking case pendency data from the AFT. A comparative analysis of the data supplied by the Principal Bench of the AFT, based in Delhi, with the data tabled in Parliament yields the following conclusions:

1. The case disposal and pendency figures tabled in Parliament for multiple years are significantly lower than those revealed by the AFT under RTI; and
2. The media report does not correctly calculate the total pendency figures tabled in Parliament.

Background to the RTI intervention

The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) was established by an Act of Parliament, namely the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007, to provide for:

a) the adjudication or trial of disputes and complaints relating to the appointment and service matters of individuals serving in the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and

b) the adjudication of appeals arising from orders, findings, or sentences of court martial held in respect of personnel of the aforementioned three defence forces.

The AFT was established with its Principal Bench located in Delhi. Today, regional benches function at ten locations across India: Chandigarh, Lucknow, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Guwahati, Kochi, Jabalpur, and Jammu. The Principal Bench, as well as the Chandigarh and Lucknow Benches, have three judicial and three administrative members each. The other regional benches have one judicial member and one administrative member each. The Chairperson is always a judicial member.

In March 2021, Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore (retd.), a BJP MP from Rajasthan, sought information on case pendency and vacancies in the AFT. In response to his Unstarred Question (No. 2663), the Minister of State in the Union Defence Ministry tabled data showing a pendency of 18,829 cases as of February 2021, along with vacancies in 23 of the 34 posts created across the 11 benches (click HERE).

After coming across this data earlier this year, I decided to seek more detailed information on case admissions, disposals, and pendency, along with budget and expenditure statistics of the AFT.

The RTI intervention

In August 2025, I submitted an RTI application (click HERE) by post to the AFT’s Principal Bench, seeking the following information (notably, the AFT has still not been onboarded onto the Union Government’s RTI Online Facility):

1. Year-wise number of cases admitted for hearing by every bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal till date;
2. Year-wise number of cases disposed of by every bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal till date;
3. Number of cases pending before every bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal as on date;
4. Number of cases pending before every bench for more than 15 years;
5. Number of cases pending for between 10–15 years;
6. Number of cases pending for between 5–9 years;
7. Number of cases pending for less than 5 years;
8. A list of cases transferred from the High Court of Delhi to the Armed Forces Tribunal between 2009–2010, along with the original writ petition number, transfer application number, names of the petitioner and respondent, and the case number assigned by the Tribunal; and
9. Year-wise total expenditure incurred by the Armed Forces Tribunal between the financial years 2009–10 and 2019–20 (bench-wise data not required).

The AFT’s reply

After about a month, the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the AFT replied, supplying statistics on case admission, disposal, and pendency from 2009 up to September 2025, and expenditure figures from 2012–13 to 2022–23, free of charge (click HERE). However, the CPIO denied access to the remaining information, stating that the AFT did not maintain records in the form sought and that he was obliged to share only such records as fall within the definition of “information” under the RTI Act.

Subsequently, in October, I filed a first appeal against this portion of the reply. Although I am still awaiting a formal order, the First Appellate Authority appears to have intervened, as the CPIO transferred the remaining queries to all regional benches. These benches are now responding to the RTI queries one by one. The CPIO of the Principal Bench has since supplied some additional information. As responses from a few benches are still pending, this dispatch is limited to a comparative analysis of the data initially shared by the CPIO and the data tabled in the Lok Sabha last week.

Findings from the comparative analysis

The dataset tabled by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in the Lok Sabha last week contains case disposal and pendency data only for the years 2020–2025, covering a period of six years. It does not include information on the backlog accumulated between the AFT’s inception and 2020. In contrast, the data obtained under RTI from the AFT provides case admission, disposal, and cumulative pendency data for all benches from their respective dates of establishment in 2009 up to September 2025.

The following findings emerge from the comparative analysis after exporting the RTI data into a spreadsheet for calculation (click HERE):

1. The recent media report based on the Union Law and Justice Minister’s reply mentions only 6,904 pending cases. This is erroneous, as this figure pertains only to the year 2025 in the parliamentary dataset. When data from 2020 to 2025 is aggregated, the pendency is nearly three times higher;
2. The Ministry’s reply does not provide a consolidated figure for total pendency before the AFT as on date. According to RTI data, pendency stood at 27,692 cases across all 11 benches as of September 2025 (click HERE to see page 4 of the CPIO’s reply);
3. Even this figure appears to be understated. Data for the Chennai and Kochi Benches for the years 2012–14 show more cases disposed of than the sum of pending cases from previous years plus fresh admissions. This discrepancy does not appear in the data for other benches. After correcting for this anomaly, the actual pendency as of September 2025 is 28,005 cases;
4. Significant discrepancies exist between disposal figures tabled by the Ministry and those supplied by the AFT under RTI for each year from 2020 to 2025, with variations running into several hundred cases annually;
5. Analysed independently, the AFT’s own dataset shows that 1,18,088 cases were admitted between 2009 and September 2025. Of these, 90,126 cases (76.32%) were disposed of, leaving a pendency of 23.68%. After correcting for discrepancies in Chennai and Kochi Bench data, the disposal figure rises to 98,003 cases and pendency to 28,005 cases, with only marginal changes in percentages;
6. The Principal Bench accounts for nearly half (48.01%) of total pendency, followed by Chandigarh (22.47%). Jaipur and Lucknow account for 7–9% each, while Guwahati accounts for less than 0.5% (click HERE for graphical representation);
7. The impact of 23 vacancies across AFT benches, as admitted by the Government in 2021, is evident in the increase in backlog during 2020–21. These years also coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, which likely contributed to reduced disposal rates; and
8. The AFT provided expenditure data only for the years 2012–13 to 2022–23. Budget Estimates from Union Budget documents have been used for subsequent years. Annual expenditure rose from ₹20.68 crore in 2012–13 to ₹54.15 crore in 2023–24. Minor variations exist between RTI-provided figures and those tabled in Parliament. The Budget Estimate for 2025–26 is ₹56.11 crore.

End note

With pendency accounting for less than 25% of cases admitted since inception, the backlog at the AFT is not, by itself, alarming. However, once data on the duration of pendency is received from all benches, a clearer picture may emerge. A further dispatch will be issued once complete information becomes available.

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*Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi