About 2.52 crore cases are pending in the subordinate courts in the country, one- fifth of them in Uttar Pradesh alone, Law Minister H R Bhardwaj informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, he said inadequacy of judge strength and indiscriminate closure of courts were among the 29 factors identified for accumulation of pending cases.

Of the total pendency, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number at 49.88 lakh, followed by Maharashtra with 34.45 lakh and Gujarat with 24.2 lakh pending cases. West Bengal has21.94 lakh cases pending in subordinate courts while Karnataka has 11.37 lakh pendency.

"Pendency has increased and we are grappling with the problem," he said.

Almost one-fifth of the pending cases pertain to cheque bouncing. The measure introduced to deter people from issuing cheques without having sufficient balance in banks has actually led to a flood of default cases taking a lot of court attention.

"There is a rethinking going on a special mechanism to deal (with cheque bouncing) is being considered. Supreme Court has made some suggestions (on the issue), we would like to look into them as soon as possible," Bhardwaj said.

He said the Allahabad High Court has the highest number of vacancy of judges in the country with more than half of the sanctioned strength of 160 remaining vacant.

Proposal for filling judges' vacancy is initiated by the High Courts who send it to the state government and then to the Centre. "State governments and High Courts do not follow time frame (of filling vacancies)," he said.