New Delhi, March 4 (IANS) Despite a backlog of over 40,000 civil and criminal cases in the Supreme Court - up by 25 percent over 2006 - the apex court continues to oppose the establishment of its new benches elsewhere in the country, parliament was told.

Minister for Law and Justice H.R. Bhardwaj told the Lok Sabha that, according to statistics, as recent as those of Jan 31, 2007, a total of 40,243 civil and criminal matters were pending in the Supreme Court.

The apex court registered an increase of at least 25 percent in the number of pending cases in the last year alone. The figure was reported to be around 29,000 at the beginning of 2006.

In response to another question, Bhardwaj told thehouse that the apex court has been consistently opposing the proposal to set up new benches in the southern and other regions of the country, despite receiving regular representations by the government.

He added that various parliamentary panels have also been consistently recommending the establishment of new Supreme Court benches outside Delhi.

Replying to a question on workload in various courts, the minister said data valid till Dec 31, 2006, shows a total of 3,991,251 cases were pending in 21 high courts of the country.

The backlog in high courts includes 3,287,037 civil cases and 704,214 criminal cases, the minister added.

According to official statistics, posted on the website of the Department of Justice, the pendency of cases in the apex court had substantially reduced from 104,936 in 1991 to 19,806 in 1998.

The law minister said the backlog of cases in the higher judiciary has shown an increasing trend despite various corrective measures being taken for their speedy disposal by courts.

The measures include increasing the number of judges from time to time, besides grouping together cases involving common questions of law, and constitution of specialised benches to facilitate faster disposal.